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LAS VEGAS — The ACC has found itself in the College Football Playoff crossfire in two of the past three seasons, and now the league is pushing for swift changes to the format.

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips on Wednesday called for an immediate expansion of the 12-team playoff and said he wants the CFP to examine whether it should scale back the weekly rankings released during the five weeks leading up to Selection Sunday.

The window to expand before the 2026-27 season is closing fast. ESPN granted CFP leaders an extension until Jan. 23 to finalize a decision. The prevailing expectation had been that the playoff would stay at 12 teams because the 10 FBS conferences and Notre Dame have been unable to reach consensus on a 16-team (or larger) model.

"I would prefer not to wait another year, but I only speak for the ACC," Phillips said Wednesday after a speaking engagement at the Intercollegiate Athletics Forum.

Notre Dame's fury over its exclusion from this year's CFP helped change the tone. Athletic director Pete Bevacqua accused the ACC of pushing for Miami to be selected over the Irish. Notre Dame has a football scheduling partnership with the ACC and is a full member of the conference in 24 other sports. Bevacqua said Monday the school's relationship with the ACC suffered "permanent damage" because of what he believed were ACC attacks on Notre Dame's résumé.

Conference commissioners met Tuesday in Las Vegas to discuss the playoff, but no format agreement emerged. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark told CBS Sports he also prefers expansion now rather than waiting until 2027-28. The SEC remains focused on a 16-team format, an SEC spokesperson told CBS Sports.

"We have good teams being left out," said Phillips, "I think we have that responsibility to make sure that we get to a number that we feel better about, that either we believe anybody after that wouldn't necessarily win [a national championship], or we at least cut into that margin. And I don't know what we can get done in the next six weeks, but we're committed to staying together and working together and working with the management committee to figure this thing out."

Phillips reiterated his opposition to any format that awards disproportionate automatic qualifiers to the power leagues. The Big Ten recently proposed a 16-team model that would give both the Big Ten and SEC four AQs each, while the ACC and Big 12 would receive two apiece.

The Big Ten and SEC control the votes needed to set the future format, but the sides have yet to reach an agreement on any structure beyond 12 teams. The Big Ten floated a 24-team model earlier this fall, but it failed to gain SEC support -- though several SEC athletic directors remain intrigued by the concept, industry sources told CBS Sports.

Phillips: CFP's weekly rankings 'disruptive'

Phillips is also pushing to reevaluate the CFP's weekly rankings shows on ESPN. The committee's top 25 is currently unveiled in each of the five weeks before Selection Sunday. The group drew criticism this year for keeping Miami below Notre Dame until flipping them in the final week, citing the Week 1 head-to-head result.

"The weekly shows draw a lot of interest. They're incredibly disruptive and very hard for the schools and the conferences," Phillips said. "And I understand why we do the shows, and it's part of the agreement with ESPN. but it causes great anxiety throughout. We have to find a better way moving forward as it relates to some of that, some of that pre-information."

Phillips said it is unclear whether any adjustments can be made under ESPN's contract, and commissioners did not address the issue during Tuesday's meeting.

College football's weekly reveal schedule is unique. By contrast, the NCAA basketball tournaments release a top-16 preview one month before Selection Sunday, before the field is selected in March.

"You've gotta believe that those 16 teams are gonna be in the field at 68, right?" Phillips said. "So there's less pressure there, and it's a fun thing and kind of a way to create interest with a month to go before Selection Sunday."

ACC will explore changes to tiebreaker protocol

Part of the disruption in the ACC's playoff push this season was the logjam at the top of its regular-season standings. Miami, the highest-ranked ACC team in the CFP, did not reach the ACC Championship because of the league's five-way tiebreaker policy. Virginia and Duke met in the title game, with the five-loss Blue Devils emerging as the ACC champion, placing more uncertainty on whether the power conference would be left out of the CFP completely this month.

Phillips wants to explore tweaking the tiebreaker policy and implementing CFP rankings into the protocol.

"Who knew that we would get to the seventh tiebreaker with five teams that were 6-2?" he said. "It's just the stars aligned in a way that nobody predicted, but no one should throw shade on Duke. They earned the right. Everybody had a chance to be part of that tiebreaker, and they played great. They won the league. They held the trophy. So I was super happy for Duke. It worked out the way it was supposed to work out relative to that's the tiebreaker we put in place, but we'll come back together. It would be smart of us to now also have a CFP maybe component in there, in the tiebreaker."

The ACC eliminated divisions in 2023, before the additions of Cal and Stanford in an expansion to 17 teams, further complicating a large league without divisions.

Phillips suggested all conferences follow similar tiebreaker protocols, citing the power conferences all set to play nine conference games starting next season. The ACC and SEC recently voted to move from eight to nine conference games.

"Maybe there's something that allows less confusion about what everybody's tiebreaker is in college football," Phillips said.