College Football Playoff Already Looking to Expand Beyond 12 Teams

The College Football Playoff logo is printed across a backdrop during a news conference in Irving, Texas on Oct. 16, 2013. Tony Gutierrez/AP Photo

We’re on the eve of the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff (CFP), with the first quarterfinal matchup taking place on Friday, Dec. 20.

It was back in 2022 that the CFP Board of Managers agreed to expand the playoff from its previous four-team format to its current with a dozen squads. However, the powers that be in the CFP are already looking to expand beyond 12 schools.

The College Football Playoff’s executive director, Rich Clark, took part in an intercollegiate athletics forum on Tuesday where he made it clear that conference commissioners have a number in mind of what the CFP should expand to, and it’s a number that could surprise many.

“The commissioners are going to look at it. ... In the end, they’re going to look at whether 14 [teams] is a better number,” revealed Clark. “I’m sure they’ll look at it. That doesn’t mean that’s a foregone conclusion, but after they see the results of this season and this playoff, they’re gonna say, ‘How can we make it even better?’ Not just better for the playoff as a standalone event but for all of college football and the regular season.”

Clark said the CFP will analyze this year’s playoff and find out how it could improve.

“I know 14 will be one of the options. Staying at 12 will be one of the options, and then there’s probably some other options in between, or maybe on the periphery of that. But we’re gonna look at everything and see what we can do to make it better,” he said.

Many had assumed that the playoff would eventually expand from 12 teams to 16 teams. That would have been college football’s version of the Sweet 16 and mimic the knockout phase of many other sporting events such as the UEFA Champions League or the World Cup. But 14 may actually make more sense, from a football standpoint, as the NFL currently has 14 teams for its postseason.

Assuming that the CFP would adopt a similar structure if it does go to 14 teams, then just two teams would get byes, instead of the current four teams in the 12-school format.

Even though the 12-team format is only in place for this season and next, it also sounds like fans won’t have to wait until after next season to find out what the new CFP will look like. Clark emphasized “this playoff” as what will determine the expansion of the CFP, so the next format should be in place before the 2025 college football season even kicks off.

If a 14-team format was in place for this season, then, per the CFP Rankings, Alabama and Miami (Fla.) would have made the College Football Playoff. Clemson, who received an automatic bid as the ACC champion, but is ranked lower than both the Tide and Hurricanes, would be the last seeded team at No. 14, with Bama at No. 12 and Miami at No. 13.

However, the above is only assuming that the two new bids went to at-large teams as opposed to some other criteria such as runners-up from power conference championship games, or even more Group of Five schools.

There are numerous machinations which could determine where additional bids for an expanded CFP would come from, but it will be hard-pressed for there to be a group of playoff teams as symmetrical to the first season of 12. The 2024-25 CFP has four Big Ten schools, three SEC teams, two ACC programs, and one Big 12 squad, to account for the power conferences. Additionally, there’s one Group of Five team as well as one independent in Notre Dame.

No matter how many teams the CFP expands to, there will always be complaints from the schools or fan bases who just missed out about why their team was deserving. This would even happen if there were 68 teams in the CFP, just as the 69th team in college basketball has a gripe when it misses out on March Madness.

Speaking of March Madness, Clark’s comments on expanding the College Football Playoff come roughly a month after a discussion on adding more teams to both the men’s and women’s NCAA Basketball Tournaments was brought up. Charlie Baker, who presides over the NCAA, said they are working with commissioners, conferences and media partners to have a “modest” expansion beyond the current 68 teams.

After the CFP had a dramatic expansion in tripling its number of participants, going from 12 to 14—not 12 to 16—would also fall into the “modest” category. So both teams and fans can likely expect baby steps in expanding the two most-watched, and most-profitable, sporting events in college athletics.