Alabama fans may not love the idea of a 24-team College Football Playoff, but the expanded field could wind up helping the Crimson Tide more than hurting them.
That’s the uncomfortable twist in all this. Polls suggest most college football fans want no part of the 24-team format, and Alabama supporters likely aren’t any different. Still, the expansion changes the math in a way that could work in the Tide’s favor if it were in place for the 2026 season.
The biggest shift is what happens to conference championship games. In the current setup, they can feel less like a reward and more like a trap, turning into a hurdle for teams already on the Playoff bubble.
Under the expanded format, that problem gets even sharper. The case for simply discarding them becomes much easier to make.
There’s also the bigger question hanging over the whole thing: does a larger Playoff make the regular season more meaningful, or less? The answer may be both. That’s why the argument around the new format refuses to settle down.
For Alabama, though, the practical reality is hard to ignore. In a recent College Football News ranking, 12 SEC teams landed in the top 25, and six of them were inside the top 12.
Alabama checked in at No. 13, just outside that group. The other SEC teams ranked 7-12 were Georgia, Kentucky, Texas, Ole Miss, Tennessee, and LSU.
And if the 2026 Playoff were already operating with 24 teams, multiple credible sources project the SEC would place seven teams in the field. That would change the meaning of Alabama’s Nov. 7 game against LSU. Instead of being treated as a Playoff elimination game, it would likely be more about seeding.
There is still a catch, though, and it’s a big one for other leagues. Stewart Mandel put it bluntly: "I hate to break this to folks but once the committee has to pay more attention to 13-24, they’ll be ranking 8-4 B1G/SEC above 9-3 ACC/B12."
That’s where the resentment starts to build for ACC and Big 12 programs. Alabama fans, meanwhile, probably wouldn’t mind the new landscape nearly as much. And if Mandel’s thinking holds, the dream scenario would be one of those 9-3 Big 12 teams being Texas Tech.
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