CFB Playoffs Expansion

[Mike in Horseheads]

After one successful year at a 12 team playoff of course now they want to expand.  Most want a 5 champs + 11 at large but today I see OSU thinks the big 10 "deserves" 4 automatic bids.  I personally don't think anyone deserves a spot after the champs but thought I'd throw it out to you guys.

[US Egg]

Pretty much a “my **** don’t stink” remark by Day.
 

With the way CFB is going it’d seem inevitable that 3-4 teams from the B10 and SEC every year will be in the playoffs with a 16 team format. But even with that, tend to think there’ll few surprises when it gets down to the Final Four most seasons. I hope it doesn’t go to 16.

[Simon]

I'll settle for nothing less than a 64 team bracket!

[GunnerBill]

I think the format this year worked fine. Let's stick with that a bit before we start talking about changes. Was one of the best college football seasons in my memory. 

[FireChans]

4 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

I think the format this year worked fine. Let's stick with that a bit before we start talking about changes. Was one of the best college football seasons in my memory. 

Well, Ohio State won. That alone knocks it down 100 pegs.

[Kirby Jackson]

I like the format now. I liked the tweak to the teams hosting too. This feels like the right number to me. Once you get beyond 12, it would be difficult to see any team below that running the table against that competition.
 

I think that’s the underrated part. Teams that have 3 losses (or even 2 in some cases) that would be ranked like 14 are inconsistent. They likely lost at least 2 of those games to good teams. They probably play like 3 good teams a year. (I’m considering top 15 teams good). Are we supposed to believe that those teams would, go on the road, and then to neutral sites and be 3-0 vs. those quality of teams? It feels like a stretch. As an Ohio State fan, I apply the Wisconsin/Iowa eye test to it. Those are the type of teams over the last 15 years that would have qualified for an expanded playoff like this. Was it possible that 2014 Wisconsin or 2023 Iowa to win 3 games against the best teams in the country? Of course not!! Those teams would have been murdered. 12 is a good number and we still enter the playoff with a few teams that have zero chance at a title (Boise, Indiana, ASU, SMU). 

[billsfan89]

I think the "sweet spot" for the CFBP is 6 teams. It allows for the top 2 ranked teams to really have a good incentive to get a bye and a home playoff game to get into the National Championship while still having a wide enough field where you don't feel like no enough teams make it.

[Mike in Horseheads]

now the Big Ten wants to expand it to 24 or 28 teams. lol

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/45994245/big-ten-floating-idea-24-28-team-cfp-sources-say

[Bill from NYC]

On 8/17/2025 at 12:15 AM, Mike in Horseheads said:

now the Big Ten wants to expand it to 24 or 28 teams. lol

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/45994245/big-ten-floating-idea-24-28-team-cfp-sources-say

I think that most people on this board knew this was going to happen. If there were 64 playoff teams there would still be fans complaining that their team didn't make it. 

 

I think that when more games are scheduled, MANY players will refuse to play and I for one do not blame them. Between these conference title games and expanded playoffs, the kids will be playing in far too many games, thus risking serious injuries before their NFL careers. 

 

If they are going to expand the number of playoff teams (which is a matter of time imo), they should reduce the number of games per regular season and eliminate conference championship games which are useless imo.

 

I don't know, should the SEC and the Big 10 simply have their own playoffs? 

[YoloinOhio]

On 8/17/2025 at 12:15 AM, Mike in Horseheads said:

now the Big Ten wants to expand it to 24 or 28 teams. lol

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/45994245/big-ten-floating-idea-24-28-team-cfp-sources-say

I think he’s just throwing it out there as a threat so people don’t cry about the 16 team expansion 

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

Needs to be a two tier competition.  Couple the football team's performance along with that of their marching band. 😇

[PromoTheRobot]

As long as G5 conference champs get an auto-bid, just like with basketball. The best thing about March Madness is all 361 D1 schools have a path to the national championship.

2 hours ago, Ridgewaycynic2013 said:

Needs to be a two tier competition.  Couple the football team's performance along with that of their marching band. 😇

 

UMass would be a contender every year.

Edited August 19 by PromoTheRobot

[Mike in Horseheads]

9 hours ago, Bill from NYC said:

I think that most people on this board knew this was going to happen. If there were 64 playoff teams there would still be fans complaining that their team didn't make it. 

 

I think that when more games are scheduled, MANY players will refuse to play and I for one do not blame them. Between these conference title games and expanded playoffs, the kids will be playing in far too many games, thus risking serious injuries before their NFL careers. 

 

If they are going to expand the number of playoff teams (which is a matter of time imo), they should reduce the number of games per regular season and eliminate conference championship games which are useless imo.

 

I don't know, should the SEC and the Big 10 simply have their own playoffs? 

I agree, everybody knew there was to much money and greed not to expand.  Might as well throw all 134 teams into a tournament with group play and then knockout rounds and skip the regular season.   As for the SEC and BIG, let them just go off on their own.