College Football Playoff Expansion: Is Bigger Really Better?
By Rory-Joe Daniels & Stiofan Mac Fhilib
The college football landscape moves fast. It was no secret that further playoff expansion was on the cards, but Monday’s announcement confirmed that the College Football Playoff will double in size to 24 teams as early as next season.
The agreement, reportedly costing ESPN an additional $1.7 billion over five years, will give the broadcaster another 12 playoff games while potentially boosting the coffers of Power Four programmes already engaged in an increasingly expensive arms race for talent. With NIL deals, the transfer portal and multimillion-dollar rosters, college football is beginning to resemble professional sport more than ever.
“Opening the Playoff to more programs, more student-athletes and more fan bases across the country is great for college football,” said Dr Mark Keenum, Chairman of the CFP Board of Managers, welcoming the decision.
Blockbuster matchups aside, the expansion represents another blow to traditionalists, who will point to the diminishing jeopardy of the regular season and the potential erosion of traditional bowl games as obvious casualties. On the other hand, the prospect of 16 campus-hosted playoff games, compared to just four under the current format, is undoubtedly an exciting development for college football fans.
But while the expanded playoff promises more opportunities, more football and considerably more money, the question remains whether bigger necessarily means better.
The Structure
Going forward, the winners of each Power Four conference will be guaranteed a playoff spot, along with the highest-ranked team from the other six conferences. The top eight seeds will get a first-round bye.
That leaves the Selection Committee, who have regularly been lambasted for their rankings, to pick the other 19 teams. If anything, we’re now opening the door to even more controversy. We’ve spent years arguing over teams ranked 12th and 13th, now we could be debating whether a team ranked 24th or 25th really deserves a shot at the national championship.
Teams seeded 9–16 will get home advantage against teams seeded 17–24 in the opening round. The winners then head on the road to face one of the top eight seeds, before the quarterfinals and semifinals move to neutral venues at the traditional New Year’s Six bowls.
That’s 16 playoff games on college campuses before the competition heads to the bowl venues for the business end of the postseason.
What Gets Better?
Late-Season Competitiveness
Right now, plenty of teams reach the midway point of the season with little left to play for beyond bowl eligibility, which has itself lost some of its appeal as players increasingly opt out.
Playoff expansion means more teams will remain in the conversation deeper into the season. A run of two or three victories in November could be enough to propel a programme back into contention, while a mid-table SEC clash that might previously have attracted little national attention could suddenly become a game with significant playoff implications.
Campus Atmospheres
This is perhaps the biggest plus point. Huge games in electric atmospheres, with fans getting the chance to watch their teams compete in the highest-stakes environments without having to travel to a neutral site.
Imagine the Oregon Duck roaring onto the field on a motorbike before an all-or-nothing playoff showdown, or Tom Petty’s I Won’t Back Down booming around The Swamp with Florida and Florida State tied heading into the fourth quarter of a last-16 clash. Unreal.
Fox Sports college football analyst Joel Klatt highlighted the importance of home-field advantage, telling supporters: “You, as a fan, have a greater influence over the outcome of these games.”
For supporters, the chance to influence the outcome of a national championship elimination game from the stands of their own stadium might be the biggest victory of all.
Greater Access for Smaller Programmes
Another potential benefit, although far from guaranteed, is that an expanded field gives smaller programmes enjoying exceptional seasons a better shot at competing for a national championship.
Just look at Boise State and New Mexico this year. Both currently sit inside the AP Top 25 and would have strong arguments for inclusion under the new structure.
However, there’s also the possibility that the Selection Committee favours bigger ‘brand-name’ programmes with more defeats on their records. How those decisions play out could prove crucial to the long-term success of the expanded playoff and securing buy-in from teams outside the Power Four.
If those programmes continue to be overlooked in favour of college football’s established powers, the march towards a ‘Super League’ structure could become increasingly difficult to resist.
What Gets Worse?
Early-Season Jeopardy
An expanded playoff means teams with three, and perhaps even four, defeats could still retain a chance of inclusion. That inevitably reduces the jeopardy surrounding early-season matchups.
Take Northern Illinois’ stunning 16–14 victory over Notre Dame in 2024. Once upon a time, a defeat of that magnitude could have effectively ended a national championship challenge. Yet the Fighting Irish recovered to reach the national championship game under the 12-team format. With 24 places available, will such upsets carry even fewer consequences?
On the flip side, programmes may become less wary of scheduling high-profile nonconference matchups. Lucrative clashes against fellow heavyweights could become more appealing when defeat no longer threatens to torpedo an entire season’s national championship ambitions.
More Uncompetitive Games
As mouthwatering as clashes between Top 25 teams might sound on paper, the gulf in quality between the nation’s elite programmes and those ranked in the twenties remains significant.
Recent playoff history has already produced its share of one-sided contests. Penn State brushed aside SMU 38–10, Ohio State dismantled Tennessee 42–17, while Ole Miss dispatched Tulane 41–10.
On paper, eight opening-weekend matchups featuring teams seeded 9–24 sound fantastic. In reality, how many will be genuinely competitive, let alone produce an upset? And what happens when the winners advance to face the top eight seeds?
There will undoubtedly be surprises, but 24 teams could prove to be the tipping point where the pursuit of quantity comes at the expense of quality.
Death of the Bowl Game?
Additional playoff games will also remove most of the Top 25 from traditional non-playoff bowl contests, with the exception of those incorporated into the quarterfinals and semifinals.
Lesser bowl games were already struggling with the effects of player opt-outs and declining prestige. Now, with another 12 programmes removed from the traditional bowl pool, organisers could face a shrinking selection of attractive opponents, raising questions about both the quality of matchups and the future of some smaller bowls.
Then there’s the question of fan saturation. With 23 playoff games competing for attention, will supporters still have the appetite for dozens of additional bowl contests? Finding room in an already congested December and January calendar could prove equally challenging.
However, Bowl Season Executive Director Nick Carparelli remains optimistic, insisting: “The bowl system is not going anywhere.”
It’s not just bowl games facing an uncertain future, either. The expansion also spells the end for another college football tradition. The SEC’s 2026 Championship Game will be its last, bringing a 35-edition run to a close, while the Big Ten is also abandoning its championship fixture. For a sport built on historic rivalries and conference identities, it’s another significant sacrifice.
Traditional bowl games and conference championships have long been part of college football’s identity, but with the national championship increasingly dominating the postseason, how much longer can those outside the playoff remain relevant?
The Notre Dame Effect
Analysis by Stiofan Mac Fhilib
Notre Dame’s Athletic Director, Pete Bevacqua, a former TV executive with NBC, played a key role in the behind-the-scenes discussions that led to the eventful move to 24 teams. While Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti had been leading the charge for further expansion since early 2025, The Athletic reported that it was at a meeting of the ten conference commissioners and Bevacqua in February 2026 where momentum for the new plan really gathered pace.
It was Bevacqua and American Conference Commissioner Tim Pernetti who then pushed for the 24-team model to be fleshed out, and not long after, the ACC and Big 12 Commissioners were both publicly on board. When it came to the negotiations with ESPN, they were led by the SEC’s Greg Sankey, along with Pettiti and Bevacqua, the latter two utilising their TV executive background to good effect.
For Notre Dame, whose one-year ‘finish in the top 12 and you’re in’ rule will be quietly dropped, the main attraction of the larger field is two-fold. They’ll have a reasonable expectation that even with three losses they should comfortably get in – and bear in mind the Irish keep all of the money they earn from any playoff run. Perhaps even more importantly though, it should also help with future scheduling.
With USC dropping the Greatest Inter-Sectional Rivalry In All Of College Football, and rumblings in Texas that the Longhorns would have to reconsider their planned home and home in the light of the SEC requirement to move from eight to nine conference games, the greater scope generally for playoff qualification should in theory make prospective top opponents more willing to face the Irish.
The payoff, of course, is that you can schedule more of these games, and winning them is great in the moment, but the actual stakes and drama in the context of the whole season will naturally be less.
In Conclusion
There is no doubt that the expanded playoff will produce some mouthwatering matchups, with the prospect of high-stakes football on college campuses particularly exciting. But ultimately, the success of the new format will be determined by the quality and competitiveness of the games themselves.
The NFL can accommodate a large playoff field because of the relative parity across the league. College football is a different beast altogether. With enormous disparities in resources, recruitment and roster strength, expecting 24 programmes to compete on anything approaching a level playing field seems optimistic at best.
There will undoubtedly be upsets, memorable moments and occasions that remind us why we love college football. But if the early rounds become a procession of one-sided contests, questions will inevitably be asked about whether expansion has gone too far.
Ultimately, though, the direction of travel seems clear. Money talks in modern college football, and with billions of dollars on the table, tradition increasingly finds itself taking a back seat.
The playoff is getting bigger. Whether college football is getting better remains to be seen.
Rory-Joe DanIELS
COLLEGE FOOTBALL ANALYST
AS A LONG-SUFFERING CINCINNATI BENGALS FAN, RORY HAS FOLLOWED THE NFL FOR OVER 20 YEARS. HIS PASSION FOR THE DRAFT LED HIM TO GET ENTANGLED WITH COLLEGE FOOTBALL AND HE HAS BEEN WRITING ABOUT PROSPECTS AND THE CFB LANDSCAPE EVER SINCE.
