The College Football Playoff may be headed for another overhaul, and ESPN is now floating a middle ground that would turn a 16-team bracket into something closer to 20.
That compromise, according to Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports, would keep four play-in games for the final spots in the field, with seeds 13 through 16 meeting for the right to reach the round of 16. Dellenger said the format is being discussed by CFP leaders, but it does not have Big Ten support right now - and without that league on board, nothing moves forward.
That’s the real hold-up. The Big Ten and SEC control the future of the playoff format, and until they land on the same number, the 12-team setup stays put. The upcoming 2026-27 season will finish with the third edition of the 12-team CFP, but there’s a real chance it ends up being the last one.
The debate has been building for a while. The SEC has stood firm at 16 teams, while the Big Ten has pushed all the way to 24.
The Big Ten’s idea was never widely embraced, but it has picked up steam after the league backed away from expanded automatic bids for power conferences. Even so, there still doesn’t appear to be much appetite for a larger field across the sport.
ESPN’s angle matters here, too. As the network with exclusive rights to the ACC, SEC and the playoff in its current form, it would keep those rights as long as the field stays at 14 teams or fewer.
But the company has also shown some flexibility, with Turner Sports handling games that would go head-to-head with the NFL. A bigger playoff would open the door for bidding, and Fox and other networks would be expected to chase CFP inventory.
If this 20-team idea ever became reality, the shape of the bracket could get pretty wild. Using last season’s 2025 regular season as a guide, Indiana would still have been the No. 1 seed in the 12-team version, with Ohio State, Georgia and Texas Tech taking the top four spots and the byes. Because a five-loss Duke team won the ACC championship over Virginia, Tulane and James Madison would have been among the five highest-ranked conference champions, with Oregon, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Alabama and Miami filling out the at-large spots.
For this exercise, the assumption is that the current rule structure would stay in place: Power 4 champions get automatic bids, along with the highest-ranked Group of 6 team, regardless of conference title status. Under that setup, the highest-ranked G6 team would not be handed an automatic spot into the 16-team first-round portion of a 20-team field.
There’s another big calendar wrinkle, too. Four full rounds plus play-in games would almost certainly force the sport to drop conference championship games to make the schedule work, especially with the goal of wrapping up earlier than last season’s Jan. 19 national title game or the 2027 title game, which is set for Monday, Jan. 25.
Using the post-Week 14 rankings from last season, before Indiana beat Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game, a 20-team field would have produced some appealing matchups. Utah and Arizona would have met in a Big 12 play-in game. Oklahoma and Alabama would have remained the only real-life 2025-26 CFP pairing preserved in this version, though Alabama would have drawn Ohio State rather than Indiana in the next round if it advanced.
The possibilities get even better from there. Diego Pavia against Georgia would have been a fun one.
Texas Tech and Texas in the round of 16 would have had plenty of juice. Oregon and Miami could have been the best first-round matchup on the board, especially with how the Hurricanes finished.
Texas A&M and Notre Dame would have set up a rematch of one of the regular season’s best games.
Last year’s field would have fit this setup unusually well. In other seasons, the bracket could easily get crowded with teams that don’t really belong. Even then, it would have been hard to push back on USC, Virginia, Arizona and Michigan as teams with at least a realistic shot at a national title.
And no matter how far the playoff expands, one thing may not change much: access for Group of 6 programs still looks limited. This year’s rule change would have kept James Madison out, and that could remain true even if the Big Ten eventually gets its way and the CFP grows to 24 teams.
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