College Football is Reportedly "More Serious Than Ever" About Expanding Playoff to 24 Teams/What if College Football Turns Into European Soccer?

That's a pretty stupid clickbait ass headline (that I chose to rip off) from CBS Sports – "The College Football Playoff is 'more serious' than ever about 24 teams".

Well, I would imagine so. We've barely started the 12-team College Football Playoff era. It'd be a little crazy to learn that back in 2018 they were more serious about making a WILD leap from 4 to 24 teams than they are now. So yeah... I would hope college football has never been more serious than in 2026.

The real headline of the story is this – College Football is approaching their "final week of negotiations" with ESPN, and CFP Executive Director Rich Clark really makes it sound like the 24-team playoff is around the immediate corner. Which I think we all knew already. I think we can all agree that it's been pretty inevitable for a long time. It's just a matter of what year it starts.

CBS Sports – The sport is as close to expanding the CFP from 12 to 24 teams as it has ever been, but CFP executive director Rich Clark isn't ready to declare it done as the final week of negotiations with ESPN begins. The CFP management committee, made up of 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua, met Wednesday at the Big Ten headquarters in Rosemont, Illinois, for updates on ESPN negotiations and to evaluate the logistical scheduling needed for a 24-team bracket.

"I would say that there's still a lot of things that we have to work through, and I would not call it a foregone conclusion at this point," Clark told CBS Sports in a phone interview after the meeting.

The CFP faces a Dec. 1 deadline to make format changes for the 2027-28 season. A vote to expand before then would not, by itself, put 24 teams on the field next year. If the logistics can't be finished in time, the bigger bracket would wait until 2028 at the earliest.

And when it comes to what exactly the playoff would look like... well good news for people who think the G6 deserves a spot at the table. It sounds like aren't being cut out of the sport entirely just yet. 

The emerging favorite model includes the top 23 teams in the CFP Selection Committee's final rankings and the highest-ranked Group of Six team. The playoff would begin two weeks after the regular season, in the second week of December, and would require the sunsetting of conference championship games. The first two rounds of the CFP would be played on campuses. Eight games would be played in the first round and eight more in the second round, with eight teams receiving byes and awaiting the first-round winners. 

Sure. Why not? I've been so bummed out thinking it's only a matter of time before the Group of Six is relegated to a definitive second tier (like what the FCS is now), that I'm not even mad about it. I might even call that format a win for the G6. I think the 24-team playoff is a little stupid. It devalues the regular season more than it already is. It only gives a team like Indiana more of a reason to never schedule a non-conference opponent who poses a threat. But cutting out the G6 altogether only puts college football on an even faster track to becoming the NFL. I'm still convinced it will happen eventually, but hell… at least this would buy them a few more years. Which is more than I though they might have.

I suppose the real question at this point is, "Once the playoff expands to 24 teams, how long until they change it again?"

No matter what happens, fans will complain about the format. Nobody hates college football more than its loudest supporters. And when fans complain about college football, the powers at be only see it as an opportunity to make more money. "Oh, you don't like what we have now? No problem. What about this shameless money-making maneuver that kind of addresses your concerns, but overall makes the sport even more different?"

Yet I have to say, to college football's credit, it's still pretty damn popular. I still love watching every Saturday. I sure do love watching the 12-team playoff when it comes around. It's hard to throw too many stones when the sport is as big as ever.

Now is the point of the blog where I like to pontificate on what college football might look like in the distant future. Scenarios that will probably never happen, but at the same time… nothing would shock me.

I know this is probably sacrilege to say when discussing American College Football, but do you know who might have the format down pretty well? Those pro soccer leagues in Europe. Sometimes I think that's where college football will end up. European soccer (i.e. UEFA) is the only league with a structure/number of teams that even somewhat resembles that of college football. And now that college football conferences have gotten so big, we're more aligned with soccer than ever. 

In case you're not familiar, in Europe, each country plays in their own separate league. England plays a Premier League season. Spain plays a La Liga season. Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, etc… they all have their own leagues… similar to college football conferences. 

At the end of the year, each country crowns a champion. From there, the top _ teams from each league (depending on how good the league is) earn a spot in the Champions League. Then they play a whole separate season/playoff featuring the best teams from all over Europe.

Doesn't it seem like that could be the direction college football is headed? We already have a handful of these super conferences big enough to play entire regular seasons within themselves. The top _ teams from each conference make the playoff. But if college football gets rid of non-conference entirely, it eliminates those meaningless Ohio State-Kent State level blowouts. It still gives the best G6 teams a chance at the end of the season. And winning your conference would mean something again, because you're playing a full season within it.

If you want to get really crazy, we can add relegation into the mix.

That way all the best teams play each other. And if we're eliminating non-conference, it opens up more room for a bigger playoffs. We wouldn't even need a conference championship game. The Big Ten would have a clear winner based on a fair 9-team round robin. We might even have enough games to spare to add a round robin element to the College Football Playoff.

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Fuck it. I've come this far. Might as well spend my whole afternoon and evening diligently mulling over a hypothetical world. All for a task that should have taken me no more than an hour. 

Teams above the line are in the top division, teams below are in the relegated division. Top division play round robin, relegated division plays double round robin. I included examples for both a 24 and a 32 team playoff. Notes are below.

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Well that was my Thursday night. I'm not saying I want it to happen. I mostly just enjoy cooking up hypothetical college football scenarios. But all things considered, aside from the very expanded playoff (which is already coming in some way, shape, or form), and the elimination of non-conference games… and the reduction in regular season games… and forcing Notre Dame to join a conference… Ok, I suppose this is vastly different than what we have now. But conferences stay the same…ish. And if college football is slowly transforming into a full-blown professional sport, it makes some sense that they would try to model themselves off an ultra-successful format used by the most popular sport in the world.