The College Football Playoff is moving toward another major shake-up, and Miami stands to be one of the programs most directly affected.
According to ESPN’s Pete Thamel, the CFP is nearing a deal to expand from 12 teams to 24 beginning in 2027. Under the proposed setup, the top eight seeds would get first-round byes and then home games, while seeds 9 through 16 would host first-round matchups. The rest of the postseason would still run through the New Year’s Six bowls, with the national championship still set for January.
For Miami, that kind of bracket would dramatically change the road to the postseason. The Hurricanes reached the 12-team field last season as the final at-large team, sneaking in ahead of Notre Dame because of the head-to-head result, then ran all the way to the national title game before losing to Indiana.
In a 24-team format, Miami would look more like a fixture than a bubble team. Programs like the Hurricanes - talented, capable of big runs, but occasionally living in that awkward middle ground - would have a much easier path into the field. The yearly arguments about who gets left out would shrink, and more ACC teams would likely be in the mix.
That doesn’t mean everyone in Coral Gables is sold on the idea.
Mario Cristobal has already made his stance clear. He told ESPN that he is “not for the 24-team thing” and questioned whether the regular season still matters if that many teams can qualify. He has also said he prefers an earlier finish to the regular season, with fewer automatic bids and more weight placed on what happens on the field.
Miami head coach Mario Cristobal says he’s firmly against expanding the College Football Playoff to 24 teams.“ I’m not for the 24-team playoff thing.
I think that’s just a lot. Why play the regular season?
And I’m certainly not for automatic bids.” pic.twitter.com/Ar4KnBs7e9
There’s another side to this for Miami, though. More home Playoff games would mean more visibility, more recruiting value, and more NIL upside in a state where every program is fighting for the same talent. If the Hurricanes land in the 9-16 range in future years, they could be hosting postseason games that carry real financial and competitive weight.
The ACC has been supportive of the larger model because it opens the door for more of its teams. But that comes with a tradeoff: the ACC Championship Game would lose some of its December spotlight and the revenue that comes with it, even if the overall CFP payouts rise under the new ESPN deal.
Fans, for the most part, don’t seem to like the direction either. The criticism has centered on the same themes over and over - that the regular season gets watered down, that too many average teams would be included, and that the whole thing feels like a money move.
For Miami, the bottom line is pretty simple. A 24-team Playoff would make the Hurricanes’ path to the postseason wider and more consistent, but it would also raise the bar for what counts as a letdown. If this team keeps trending the way it has, the new format could put Miami in the field year after year - and in the hunt for national titles on a regular basis.
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Still, the victory came with another concern that has been building in plain sight: the secondary. Miami dealt with multiple injuries in the defensive backfield, including Bryce Fitzgerald and Zechariah Poyser, and that kind of attrition makes an already important part of the defense even more fragile. The Hurricanes escaped with one of their biggest wins of the season, but the health of that group is shaping up as a storyline worth watching closely. [Read more 🡒]