CFP’s new 24-team format bleeds further dysfunction in its governance

BY GAVIN PATRICK

Co-Managing Editor/Sports Editor

First it was two teams. Then it was four teams. Since it’s been 12 teams. Next year it’s ... doubling? Again?

I’m, of course, referring to the rapid and somewhat frenetic evolution of the College Football Playoff (CFP).

In a galaxy far, far away, it used to be that only the top two ranked teams played each other for the national championship, the BCS era, which feels like a lifetime ago.

In fact, prior to 1998, there didn’t even used to be a national title game, because the game had decided it didn’t need one.

We all know the old saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” So was the CFP system ever broken to begin with?

Here’s the answer that I and many others, with much more industry insight than me, have come to: College football itself is broken.

No, the sport isn’t losing popularity or its ability to function because of any of this. College football is actually more popular than ever, and the introduction of a 24-team playoff will only bring more eyes to the sport.

The problem here is what motivated the change in the first place.

My dad taught me one simple truth: “The world revolves around money,” so you can imagine what my initial reaction to the expansion had to be.

The CFP would not have agreed with ESPN to expand the playoff field to 24 if it didn’t receive an additional payout. That’s just business. But what that payout amounted to, an added $345 million in media distributions, was not significant enough to be a deal breaker.

We have to trace the money back further, elsewhere in the system, and the answer I arrived at is the very reason why college football has spiraled out of control, which opened the Pandora’s Box of expanding the playoffs in the first place.

Name, Image and Likeness.

Power 4 programs are spending tens of millions of dollars a year to construct their rosters. Some annual budgets are north of $50 million. Coaches and ADs are getting fired every year for scarfing all that university money and not having a playoff berth to show for it. 

The pressure is simply insurmountable. But not if you allow more skin in the game. 

Here at Tarleton State University, the football team competes at the FCS level, a league that’s been using a 24-team playoff bracket since 2013. The reason why it has worked for so long, and why I believe the FBS version will not, is parity.

If the point of expanding the playoff is to give teams near the bottom of the bracket a chance to validate their investments with a postseason run, that’s facetious. The CFP couldn’t even achieve that with the 12-team system.

Under the 12-team format in 2025, the final two seeds were granted to conference champions ranked near the bottom of the AP Top 25, both with a Strength of Record (SOR)—according to ESPN Analytics—also in the 20s.

In 2024, four teams were allowed in the College Football Playoff with a SOR below the top 12 threshold, with 12 seed Clemson ranking a relatively dismal 25th.

Predictably, all of these teams lost their first game by an average of three touchdowns.

Under the new 24-team format, comparable teams would be allowed in the dance almost indiscriminately. The top eight ranked teams would receive a bye, and the first round would match up Nos. 9-24, starting with highest seed vs. lowest seed.

That’s a lot of unwatchable football.

I’m of the belief that any playoff format in any sport should be devised so that every single team has a realistic chance to go all the way. College football has never, and will never, field 24 teams with the capacity to win a national championship.

Will upsets happen along the way? Yes. But any hope of a Cinderella run in this new format will be squashed so quickly that it’s pointless to have this many teams to begin with.

A social media poll from On3 over the summer revealed that only 9% of respondents wanted to see the College Football Playoff field bumped to 24. They were ignored.

The sad part, though, is that the sport is in a place where fans will flock to any outrageous idea its rich executives come up with, even if they don’t necessarily support it. Stadiums will be packed, tickets will be sold, because America can’t go a Saturday without college football as long as it keeps being served.

College football has its stakeholders by the strings, and they know it.