The College Football Playoff is nearing a deal to expand the postseason field to 24 teams beginning with the 2027 season.
The agreement is expected to come together in the near future pending final approvals from the conferences involved, and the move would represent the second major expansion of the playoff since it replaced the Bowl Championship Series more than a decade ago.
Sources: The College Football Playoff is nearing a deal to expand to 24 teams, per sources. The new format will start in 2027 and is expected to come together in the near future, pending final approvals. pic.twitter.com/tRdVAiqKax
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) October 15, 2026
How the national championship has been decided
College football spent decades without a true playoff to determine its champion before the BCS was introduced in 1998. That system used a combination of computer rankings and human polls to select the top two teams for a single national championship game, and it remained in place through the 2013 season.
The BCS produced frequent controversy when multiple undefeated or one-loss teams were left out of the title game, which led to the creation of the College Football Playoff in 2014. The new format featured a four-team field selected by a committee, with two teams advancing to the championship game after winning their respective semifinals.
The four-team structure remained in place through the 2023 season, during which Alabama, Clemson and Georgia combined to win seven of the 10 titles.
In 2024, the playoff expanded to 12 teams, and in 2025, Miami reached the national championship after entering as the No. 10 seed, defeating Texas A&M, Ohio State and Ole Miss before losing to Indiana in the title game.
Details of the proposed 24-team format
Discussions around the new model have included 19 at-large bids, automatic berths for the four Power Four conference champions as determined by each conference, and a bid for the highest-ranked Group of Six team.
The New Year's Six bowls are still expected to host the quarterfinals and semifinals, with the national championship remaining in January. Under the structure that has been discussed, seeds 1 through 8 would receive a first-round bye and then host a second-round game on campus, while seeds 9 through 16 would host first-round games against seeds 17 through 24.
The expansion is also expected to eliminate Power Four conference championship games and move the start of the regular season up by one week in order to create the necessary space in the calendar for the additional rounds.
The CFP and ESPN have been negotiating a media rights deal that would cover the additional games through the 2031-32 season, matching the length of the network's existing $7.8 billion contract that was signed in 2024.
Mario Cristobal's previous comments on expansion
Miami coach Mario Cristobal has expressed opposition to a 24-team field. In May, he said on the "This Is Football" podcast that he was "not for the 24-team thing," and he questioned why teams would play a regular season if so many were guaranteed a path into the postseason.
Cristobal also said he was "certainly not for automatic bids," adding that "it's not a beauty pageant" and that teams should have to "go win on the field." He has said he is open to expansion in general "as long as it's fair" and as long as qualification is settled on the field rather than through automatic bids.
Cristobal has also suggested that the postseason calendar should be moved earlier so that teams have more time to rebuild rosters through the transfer portal after the season ends.
The 12-team format will remain in place for the 2026 season, and the first rankings of this year's field are scheduled to be released on Nov. 3.
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