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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — ACC commissioner Jim Phillips told ESPN on Wednesday that “there’s a lot of push” to expand the College Football Playoff in 2024.

The CFP’s board of managers voted in early September to expand the playoff to 12 teams in 2026, but the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick have been working toward expansion two years sooner.

“We’re trying. We’re committed to doing it,” Phillips told ESPN at ACC basketball media day. “We really are, across 10 conferences and Notre Dame. We feel really good about the work that’s been done across all 10 conferences and Notre Dame these last five, six months. We’re really unified in trying to get it done. It’s just the logistics of this thing are difficult. Not insurmountable, but time is not a friend of ours right now. Time is not on our side.

“There’s a lot of push to try to get this thing done.”

Phillips also said “it’s time to look at” expanding the NCAA basketball tournaments. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey opened the conversation in August, telling Sports Illustrated he was willing to take a “fresh look” at the tournament.

Since then, the debate has intensified in the sport, although it seems any potential change is barely in the exploratory stage.

“It’s the crown jewel of all of our championships,” Phillips told ESPN. “There’s nothing that really duplicates it, on both sides, on the men’s side and the women’s side. So you have to be respectful of not messing it up, either, and understand it’s in a really good, healthy place. But you also have to continue to be progressive, and I try to think about those things in that way.

“I’m a believer that the [automatic qualifiers] and winning a championship matters. It should matter. I’m not interested in reducing the AQs. I’m just not. But I’m also committed to making sure those that deserve to get into a tournament should. … You’re trying to balance the access across Division I. Making sure the AQs remain there for conferences. They need that. They need that for the financial piece of it, they need it for the emotional piece of it, to be part of it, etc. But you also have a group that at the highest level is clamoring for more access for their teams. That just leads itself to discussion of, we need to take a holistic perspective and review of college basketball and the tournament.”

Phillips said the logistics of such an expansion — the calendar, the format, the financial aspect of it — haven’t been figured out yet, but there’s an interest in exploring it.

“More access, more opportunity for more young men and women,” he said. “There’s a lot of positives to that.”

ACC coaches were split on whether to expand the NCAA tournaments. Miami’s Jim Larranaga and Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim were in favor, with each having his own preferred format.

Larranaga would like to see all 32 conference champions receive byes, while 64 at-large teams play in the first round.

“I’ve been a proponent of expanding the NCAA tournament for a long time,” he said. “If you look at the mission of college basketball, the NCAA tournament is the culmination of every player’s dream. But if you look at the history, it’s always the same teams with a few exceptions. So expanding the tournament to 96, it really should have gone from 64 to 96.”

Boeheim would like to see the First Four in Dayton be expanded to every first-round site, which would allow the tournament to still fall within its typical three-week window.

“I advocated this 25 years ago,” he said. “There’s three times more good [programs] than when we had 48 teams in the tournament. Putting money in, good schools. It’s not a hard expansion. The argument I’ve heard is that it dilutes the tournament, which is nonsense. It actually makes the tournament better. … You have better teams in the tournament than you would before.”

Virginia’s Tony Bennett likes it the way it is but wouldn’t be opposed to minor expansion.

“I think the NCAA tournament is arguably the best, from start to finish, the best sporting event going,” Bennett said. “I don’t want to lose what we have. If we have a little bit of expansion and it doesn’t take away and it’s not a major shift, I’d be for that. I would protect what we have, and if there’s little adjustments, a few more here and there, I’d be for that, but not a major overhaul.”

Virginia Tech’s Mike Young would opt for the status quo.

“I’m a purist,” Young said. “I don’t like it. … Why would we dabble with something that’s been so successful, that’s been so unique to the world of athletics, that is enjoying enormous popularity and has forever and ever?”

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LSU’s Lacy facing charges related to fatal crash

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LSU's Lacy facing charges related to fatal crash

Louisiana State Police have issued an arrest warrant for former LSU receiver Kyren Lacy, who is accused of causing a fatal crash that killed a 78-year-old man on Dec. 17 and then fleeing the scene without rendering aid or calling authorities.

Louisiana State Police said on Friday that Lacy will be charged with negligent homicide, felony hit-and-run and reckless operation of a vehicle.

Police said they have been in contact with Lacy and his attorney to turn himself in.

According to a news release from state police, Lacy was allegedly driving a 2023 Dodge Charger on Louisiana Highway 20 and “recklessly passed multiple vehicles at a high rate of speed by crossing the centerline and entering the northbound lane while in a designated no-passing zone.”

“As Lacy was illegally passing the other vehicles, the driver of a northbound pickup truck abruptly braked and swerved to the right to avoid a head-on collision with the approaching Dodge,” a Louisiana State Police news release said.

“Traveling behind the pickup was a 2017 Kia Cadenza whose driver swerved left to avoid the oncoming Dodge Charger. As the Kia Cadenza took evasive action to avoid impact with the Dodge, it crossed the centerline and collided head-on with a southbound 2017 Kia Sorento.”

Police alleged that Lacy, 24, drove around the crash scene and fled “without stopping to render aid, call emergency services, or report his involvement in the crash.”

Herman Hall, 78, of Thibodaux, Louisiana, who was a passenger in the Kia Sorrento, later died from injuries suffered in the crash, according to state police.

The drivers of the Cadenza and Sorento also sustained moderate injuries, according to police.

Lacy played two seasons at Louisiana before transferring to LSU in 2022. This past season, he had 58 catches for 866 yards with nine touchdowns and declared for the NFL draft on Dec. 19, two days after the crash.

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Effort to unionize college athletes hits road block

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Effort to unionize college athletes hits road block

The legal efforts to unionize college athletes appear to be running out of steam this month as a new Republican-led administration gets set to take over the federal agency in charge of ruling on employment cases.

A players’ advocacy group who filed charges against the NCAA, Pac-12 and USC that would have potentially opened the door for college players to form a union decided Friday to withdraw its complaint. Their case – which was first filed in February 2022 – was one of two battles against the NCAA taken up by the National Labor Relations Board in recent years. Earlier this week, an administrative law judge closed the other case, which was filed by men’s basketball players at Dartmouth.

The National College Players Association, which filed its complaint on behalf of USC athletes, said the recent changes in state law and NCAA rules that are on track to allow schools to directly pay their players starting this summer caused them to reconsider their complaint.

“[T]he NCPA believes that it is best to provide adequate time for the college sports industry to transition into this new era before football and basketball players employee status is ruled upon,” the organization’s founder Ramogi Huma wrote in the motion to withdraw.

The NCAA and its four power conferences agreed to the terms of a legal settlement this summer that will allow schools to spend up to roughly $20.5 million on direct payments to their athletes starting next academic year. The deal is scheduled to be finalized in April.

College sports leaders, including NCAA President Charlie Baker, have remained steadfast in their belief that athletes should not be considered employees of their schools during a period when college sports have moved closer to a professionalized model.

Some industry stakeholders believe that the richest schools in college sports will need to collectively bargain with athletes to put an end to the current onslaught of legal challenges facing the industry. Currently, any collective bargaining would have to happen with a formal union to provide sufficient legal protection. Some members of Congress say they are discussing the possibility of creating a special status for college sports that would allow collective bargaining without employment. However, Congressional aides familiar with ongoing negotiations told ESPN that influential Republican leaders in Congress are firmly against the idea.

The NLRB’s national board previously declined to make a ruling on whether college athletes should be employees in 2015 when a group of football players at Northwestern attempted to unionize. Jennifer Abruzzo, the agency’s leader during the Biden administration, signaled an interest in taking up the athletes’ fight to unionize early in her tenure. Abruzzo is not expected to remain as the NLRB’s general counsel during Donald Trump’s presidency.

Under Abruzzo, the agency’s regional offices pushed both the Dartmouth and USC cases forward in the past year. Dartmouth players got far enough to vote in favor of forming a union in March 2024, but were still in the appeals process when they decided to end their effort last month.

The only remaining legal fight over employee status in college sports is a federal lawsuit known as Johnson v. NCAA. That case claims the association is violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, which does not guarantee the right to unionize but instead would give athletes some basic employee rights such as minimum wage and overtime pay. That case is currently working its way through the legal process in the Third Circuit federal court.

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Syracuse QB McCord to declare for NFL draft

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Syracuse QB McCord to declare for NFL draft

Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord, the nation’s leading passer in 2024, told ESPN on Friday that he will declare for the NFL draft and has decided to no longer pursue an NCAA eligibility waiver for another season.

This decision ends what he called a “crazy ride” through college football that saw him go 22-4 as a starting quarterback at Syracuse and Ohio State. McCord led the nation with 4,779 passing yards in 2024 and led Syracuse to a 10-win season and a victory over Washington State in the Holiday Bowl.

He broke DeShaun Watson’s ACC career passing record in 2024, and the 10-win season marked the program’s first since 2018.

“I think the biggest thing for me was, obviously, I felt like I put together a really good year,” McCord told ESPN. “With the way everything played itself out and what I’m hearing in terms of feedback at the draft, it just makes sense to go, after weighing all the options out.”

McCord finished fourth nationally with 34 touchdown passes this year, and his statistical dominance and strong team play helped him considerably in the eyes of NFL evaluators. McCord profiles as middle-rounds NFL pick right now, with the process of playing the East-West Shrine Bowl and meeting with teams through the draft process gives him a runway to improve his stock. He is not currently listed among the top 10 draft-eligible quarterbacks by ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr.

The move to Syracuse proved beneficial for McCord, as the program under first-year coach Fran Brown and the offense under coordinator Jeff Nixon gave McCord a forum to thrive. He’s said he’ll be “forever indebted” to the school and staff for his time there.

“It was a little bit of leap of faith going to Syracuse,” McCord said. “Coming off the season I had at Ohio State and going in portal and having no idea where you are going to be, it was a scary situation to be in.”

He said he’s grateful for the journey from going 11-1 as the starter at Ohio State to the uncertainty of the portal to having a historic final year of college at Syracuse.

“The biggest thing is how thankful I am for Syracuse for bringing me in,” McCord said. “I’m thankful to the coaches, my teammates and the fans.”

McCord, who graduated from Syracuse, expressed his appreciation for Brown and Nixon. He said the offense of Nixon, who is an experienced NFL coach, helped prepare him for the next step he’s about to take.

“He’s one of the smartest football minds I’ve ever had a chance to be around,” McCord said. “He put me in position to go out and have success. His playcalling, I think, was phenomenal, especially in situations where we had to have it. I owe a lot of my success to him.”

McCord believes the adversity of his journey shaped him for the NFL.

“I think I learned a lot about myself throughout the process,” McCord said, “and it was really the first time I faced a big moment of adversity having to go in the portal. It’s definitely been a crazy, wild ride. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in world.”

McCord played in five games as a freshman at Ohio State, one more than the NCAA minimum for a redshirt season. He had filed a waiver to challenge that, but he said he has since decided to push forward and enter the NFL.

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