An expanded College Football Playoff would have changed the picture in a big way in both 2024 and 2025, but the bracket math also shows why the debate around format still matters.
Using the final CFP rankings from those two seasons, a 24-team field can be mapped out based on the reported proposal that has circulated in multiple reports over the past week. Under that model, 19 teams would get at-large spots, the four Power Four conference champions would earn automatic bids, and the highest-ranked Group of Six champion would also be included.
The top eight teams would land first-round byes, while seeds No. 9 through No. 16 would host No. 24 through No. 17.
That said, this is still only a hypothetical exercise. The CFP has not locked in a format or released official selection and seeding rules for a 24-team bracket.
The 2024 picture is the cleaner of the two. All five conference champions covered by the proposed automatic-bid setup finished inside the committee’s top 24, so the field would simply have included the teams ranked No. 1 through No. 24.
That setup would have sent Oregon, Georgia, Texas, Penn State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Tennessee, and Indiana straight to the bye line.
Texas stands out most from that group. Instead of taking on Clemson in the actual 12-team playoff, the Longhorns would have been sitting as the No. 3 seed with a first-round bye.
The first-round matchups in that 2024 hypothetical bracket would have been:
No. 9 Boise State vs.
No. 24 UNLV
No. 10 SMU vs.
No. 23 Colorado
No. 11 Alabama vs.
No. 22 Army
No. 12 Arizona State vs.
No. 21 Syracuse
No. 13 Miami vs.
No. 20 Illinois
No. 14 Ole Miss vs.
No. 19 Missouri
No. 15 South Carolina vs.
No. 18 Iowa State
No. 16 Clemson vs.
No. 17 BYU
Memphis, ranked No. 25, would have been the first team on the outside looking in.
The 2025 version gets messier. Indiana, Georgia, Texas Tech and Duke all won their Power Four conferences, and Tulane was the highest-ranked Group of Six champion.
Duke’s case is the one that jumps off the page: the Blue Devils won the ACC title but still finished outside the committee’s final top 25. Under the reported 24-team structure, they would still get in anyway.
If that unranked automatic qualifier were slotted at the bottom of the bracket, Duke would be the No. 24 seed. That would have bumped No.
24 James Madison and No. 25 North Texas out of the field.
The rest of the at-large spots would go to the next highest-ranked teams, and the bye list in 2025 would have been Indiana, Ohio State, Georgia, Texas Tech, Oregon, Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Oklahoma.
Those first-round matchups would have looked like this:
No. 9 Alabama vs.
No. 24 Duke
No. 10 Miami vs.
No. 23 Iowa
No. 11 Notre Dame vs.
No. 22 Georgia Tech
No. 12 BYU vs.
No. 21 Houston
No. 13 Texas vs.
No. 20 Tulane
No. 14 Vanderbilt vs.
No. 19 Virginia
No. 15 Utah vs.
No. 18 Michigan
No. 16 USC vs.
No. 17 Arizona
For Texas, the contrast between the two seasons is pretty stark. In 2024, the Longhorns would have been resting with a bye as the No. 3 seed. In 2025, they would have been opening the bracket at home against Tulane as the No. 13 seed.
That’s the selling point of a bigger playoff: more teams in the mix, more seasons with real postseason weight, and more chances for programs outside the usual power lane to matter in December. But the same examples also show the complication. Automatic bids can clash with the committee’s rankings, and the 2025 Duke-James Madison debate is exactly the kind of issue that would keep popping up.
So while a 24-team format would create more access, it would not erase the arguments. The real difference would come down to how the selection and seeding rules are written, and which teams those rules end up helping most. Until the CFP settles on something official, these brackets remain projections, not a blueprint.
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