Is the 24-Team College Football Playoff a Good Idea? Yes, More Teams Means More Competition

The College Football Playoff is going to 24 teams. ESPN and CBS Sports both reported on Nov. 9, 2026, citing sources, that the CFP and ESPN signed a five-year deal worth close to $1.7 billion that doubles the field starting with the 2027 season and gets rid of the Power 4 conference championship games (ESPN, CBS Sports). When I checked the CFP's own site that morning, the latest statement I could find was from Nov. 6, saying the agreement was "in the final stages of review" (CFP).

I think it's a good idea. More teams with a real shot is more competition, and that's the point of a playoff. The 12-team field left out teams with legitimate cases the last two years. Sixteen would have fixed the snubs. Twenty-four goes further: more fan bases still playing for something in November, more Group of 6 and at-large access, and more games that can actually change who gets a title.

Is the 24-team College Football Playoff a good idea? Yes. When I lay the reported 24-team model over the final CFP rankings from the 2024 and 2025 seasons, spots 13 through 24 fill with programs that were watching Selection Day from the outside. That is more competition, not less.

01 What Changes Under the 24-Team Format

Here's the reported format next to the one we have now. The 24-team details are from ESPN's Nov. 9 report and CBS Sports. The 12-team rules are from the CFP and our explainer on how the College Football Playoff works.

A few other details from ESPN's report: Selection Day would be Sunday, Nov. 28, 2027, the national championship stays on Jan. 24, 2028 in New Orleans, and Army-Navy moves into a standalone window on Dec. 4, 2027, the weekend that used to belong to conference title games. ESPN's Pete Thamel reported the expansion adds an average of $345 million a year on top of ESPN's existing payments.

02 Who Would Have Gotten In

The cleanest way I could find to test this was to take the last two final CFP rankings and ask who would have filled spots 13 through 24. That's not a perfect simulation. Those rankings came out after conference title games, and some of these teams picked up a loss in a game that won't exist anymore. But it's a fair look at how much deeper the field gets.

Source: final CFP rankings, Dec. 8, 2024 and Dec. 7, 2025 (2024 rankings, 2025 rankings).

Look at that list. Miami, Ole Miss, South Carolina, BYU, Army, UNLV, Texas, Vanderbilt, Utah, Tulane, James Madison. Those are real programs with real fan bases that the 12-team format left on the outside, or let in only as a solitary Group of 6 automatic. Under the reported 19+4+1 split on the 2024 rankings, the field came out to exactly the top 24, with No. 24 UNLV (10-3) taking the last at-large spot. In 2025, the last at-large spots reach No. 23 Iowa at 8-4. Whether No. 24 James Madison (12-1) gets in depends on the ACC, which I'll get to below, because only the top Group of 6 team (No. 20 Tulane) gets an automatic bid.

That is the competition case in one table. Twice as many teams finish the year with a path.

03 More Teams With Something to Play For

Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti has argued that 24 teams won't make November meaningless because of what ESPN described as "tiered incentives." Seeds 1 through 8 get a bye and then a home game. Seeds 9 through 16 host a first-round game. The teams near the cut line are fighting to stay in. More fan bases have something concrete to play for in the last month. That's the same idea behind the NBA Cup: give early and mid-season games a reason that isn't just "we hope the committee likes us."

I buy that. Under 12 teams, a lot of Power conference programs are mathematically or practically done by early November. Under 24, a two-loss team in mid-October still has a path. A Group of 6 program that wins out still has a path. An at-large bubble team still has a path. That changes how coaches call games and how fans show up for them.

The Group of 6 piece matters more than people want to admit. The reported format keeps one automatic Group of 6 bid, then opens 19 at-large spots. That is how a 12-1 James Madison or an 11-2 Tulane stays in the conversation even when the Power 4 stack the top of the board. Access is competition. Closing the door earlier is not purity. It is just fewer teams fighting.

And lower seeds already proved they can win. Ohio State won the 2024 title as the No. 8 seed. Miami made the national championship game in the 2025 season as the No. 10 seed, beating Texas A&M, Ohio State and Ole Miss before losing 27-21 to Indiana. The 2025 seeds 9 through 12 went 4-4 combined. The back of the bracket is not automatically dead weight. A bigger field gives more of those runs a chance to start.

04 The Snubs Were Real. Twenty-Four Fixes Them and Then Some.

The 12-team field has left out good teams. That part of the expansion argument is settled for me.

• 2024 season: No. 11 Alabama (9-3) and No. 13 Miami (10-2) were left out while No. 12 Arizona State and No. 16 Clemson got in as conference champions.

• 2025 season: No. 11 Notre Dame (10-2) and No. 12 BYU (11-2) were left out while No. 20 Tulane and No. 24 James Madison got automatic bids. Notre Dame's exclusion was the big one, since the Irish had been ahead of Miami in every CFP ranking until the final one, even though Miami beat them head-to-head on Aug. 31, 2025 (2025–26 College Football Playoff).

I also ran a 16-team version with the same five automatic bids and 11 at-large spots on those final rankings. In 2024, the at-large spots go through No. 15 South Carolina, which takes in both Alabama and Miami. In 2025, they go through No. 14 Vanderbilt, which takes in Notre Dame and BYU. Every team on that snub list is in.

So yes, 16 solves the snub problem. That is why a lot of people, including SEC commissioner Greg Sankey before he went along with the Big Ten's 24-team plan according to CBS Sports, preferred stopping there. I get the appeal. I just think stopping at 16 leaves a lot of competitive juice on the table. Spots 17 through 24 are where Army, UNLV, Tulane, Houston, Georgia Tech and the rest of that bubble stay alive into December. That is more football that matters for more places.

05 The Best Arguments Against 24

I am not going to pretend the other side has nothing.

Three-loss teams will get in. Nine of the 12 teams in that 2024 bubble group had at least three losses. In 2025 it was eight of 12. For comparison, the actual 12-team fields had one team with three losses each year: Clemson (10-3) in 2024 as the ACC champion, and Alabama (10-3) in 2025.

The 2025 number depends on how you handle the ACC. Duke won the 2025 ACC title game and finished 8-5, unranked. If Duke takes the ACC's automatic spot, the field has 10 teams with three or more losses and 12-1 James Madison is out. Under the new format there's no title game, though, and Virginia had the best ACC record at 7-1. Make Virginia the champion and James Madison gets the last at-large spot, which leaves nine teams with three or more losses.

My answer: a three-loss Power conference team that stayed ranked in the top 24 played a harder schedule than a lot of one-loss teams from weaker leagues. The playoff is supposed to sort that out on the field. If an 8-4 or 9-3 team is truly overmatched, it will lose in the first round on someone else's campus. That is competition doing its job. Keeping them out forever because the record looks ugly on paper is the committee doing the sorting instead.

We lose the conference title games. The 2025 Big Ten Championship between Indiana and Ohio State averaged 18.33 million viewers on FOX, the most ever for a conference title game (Sports Media Watch). The SEC Championship drew 16.9 million the same weekend, per CBS Sports. Those are real audiences. Losing them hurts.

But Sports Media Watch also pointed out that nothing was really at stake in that Big Ten title game, since both teams were in the playoff either way. In the 12-team format, those games were often a dress rehearsal. Under 24, the regular-season standings decide the champions, and the November slate has to carry the weight those title games used to claim. I would rather have more teams fighting for seeding and survival in Week 12 than one more game between two teams already locked in.

CBS Sports reported the conference championship games had a combined value of nearly $250 million, and the SEC's alone was worth around $100 million a year. ESPN's reported average of $345 million a year in extra playoff money more than replaces that. The calendar opens up a weekend. Army-Navy gets its own window. The business case and the competition case point the same direction for once.

The regular season will get watered down. The March Madness comparison gets used a lot here: 68 teams, and a lot of November nonconference basketball feels like an afterthought. Football only has 12 regular-season games, so it has more to lose if November stops mattering.

Petitti's tiered-incentive answer is the right one. Byes, home games and the cut line are not the same as a vague committee hope. Seeds still matter. Home campus games in the first two rounds still matter. A team that sleepwalks through November is not getting a top-eight seed and a bye. The regular season becomes the seeding tournament for a bigger bracket, which is how most sports already work.

06 What the First-Round Tape Already Shows

We have eight first-round games from the 12-team era. Home teams went 6-2, and five of the eight were decided by 14 points or more.

Source: 2024–25 and 2025–26 College Football Playoff results.

The average margin was 17.75 points. The No. 11 and No. 12 seeds went 0-4 and lost by an average of 22.5 points. Critics will say a 24-team field adds eight more opening games that look like that. Fair. Some of them will be blowouts. Some of the 12-team openers already were.

The other side of that tape is Miami at Texas A&M, a 10-3 road win that started a championship-game run. You do not get that game, or that run, if you shrink the field to protect against ugly scores. I would rather live with a few 31-point first-round games than lock out half the sport in early November.

07 Questions People Are Asking

Is the College Football Playoff expanding to 24 teams? Yes, according to ESPN and CBS Sports, who reported on Nov. 9, 2026, citing sources, that the CFP and ESPN signed a deal to expand the field to 24 teams. As of that morning, the CFP's most recent official statement (Nov. 6) said the agreement was in the final stages of review.

When does the 24-team playoff start? With the 2027 season. The 2026 playoff still uses the 12-team format, with the national championship on Jan. 25, 2027 in Las Vegas.

How does the 24-team College Football Playoff work? It reportedly takes the four Power 4 conference champions, the highest-ranked Group of 6 team and 19 at-large teams. The top eight seeds get a first-round bye, and the first two rounds are played on the higher seed's campus. The quarterfinals and semifinals stay in the New Year's Six bowls.

Will there still be conference championship games? Not in the Power 4, according to the reports. Champions would be decided by regular-season standings and each conference's tiebreakers.

Does Notre Dame get an automatic spot in the 24-team playoff? No. ESPN reported there's no longer a guarantee for Notre Dame if it isn't ranked high enough for one of the 19 at-large bids.

Does a bigger field mean more competition? Yes. On the final rankings from the 2024 and 2025 seasons, spots 13 through 24 fill with teams the 12-team format left out. At-large bids jump from 7 to 19, and more fan bases still have something to play for in November.

When is the first 24-team national championship game? Jan. 24, 2028, in New Orleans, per ESPN.

08 Final Thoughts

I want more teams in the fight. Sixteen would have cleaned up the snubs. Twenty-four keeps those teams in and then pulls the next tier with them: the Group of 6 programs, the three-loss Power conference teams with tough schedules, the fan bases that used to be done by Halloween. Petitti's tiered incentives give November a concrete reason to matter. Miami's run as a No. 10 seed already showed what a deeper bracket can look like when a lower seed refuses to go quietly.

Yes, we lose the conference title games. Yes, some first-round games will be lopsided. I still take the trade. A playoff that includes more of the sport is a better playoff.

The next real test is the 2027 season, when we see who ends up at No. 24 in the first one, and whether that team makes anyone nervous.

How I put this together: the 24-team format, deal value and calendar details are from ESPN's Nov. 9, 2026 report (Heather Dinich, with Pete Thamel's reporting on the money) and CBS Sports' report the same morning (John Talty). The CFP's Nov. 6 statement is from CollegeFootballPlayoff.com. Final CFP rankings, seeds and game scores for the 2024 and 2025 seasons are from Wikipedia's 2024–25 and 2025–26 College Football Playoff pages and FBS rankings pages, pulled Nov. 9, 2026. The 24-team and 16-team fields in this post are my own reconstruction using those final rankings, not official brackets. Viewership numbers are from FOX Sports, Sports Media Watch and CBS Sports.