The 2026 National Championship Game aired on January 19 — nearly three weeks later than college football traditionally wrapped up. That single detail tells you everything about where this sport is heading. Now, the American Football Coaches Association has thrown its weight behind a 24-team College Football Playoff, and frankly, it’s the worst idea anyone has floated since the four-team format sparked endless selection drama.
The regular season is college football’s biggest selling point — and a 24-team CFP destroys it
What separates college football from every other American sport is the raw, unforgiving weight of each Saturday. One loss can end a season. That pressure creates games where starters actually play four quarters in November, where rivalries carry real consequences, and where fans invest emotionally in a way the NFL simply cannot replicate. The 12-team playoff already chipped away at that dynamic. A 24-team field would shatter it entirely.
Think about Ohio State versus Michigan. Picture both teams entering that game at 9-2, both safely inside the top 15. Under a 24-team bracket, a loss barely registers — it becomes a quality loss for strength-of-schedule calculations. Why expose your starting quarterback to injury in a game where only seeding is at stake ? Coaches would logically pull starters at halftime. The greatest rivalry game in college football turns into an extended preseason tune-up.
Non-conference scheduling has already deteriorated noticeably. The USC-Notre Dame rivalry collapsed partly because both programs calculated they improved their playoff odds by avoiding each other entirely. The SEC moving to nine conference games has forced cancellations of major non-conference matchups. Expand to 24 teams and watch that trend accelerate dramatically. A big program that schedules three cupcake non-conference opponents and goes 6-3 in conference play would essentially punch its playoff ticket. Four losses might be enough in certain seasons. Why would any program risk a difficult non-conference game ?
Teams ranked 17th through 24th have no business in a national championship race
Here’s where the argument against a bloated playoff field becomes concrete. Look at what the selection committee was ranking inside the top 25 in recent seasons :
| Season | Team | Record | Ranking |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Iowa | 8-4 | No. 23 |
| 2025 | Arizona | — | No. 17 |
| 2024 | Syracuse | 9-3 | No. 21 |
| 2022 | Mississippi State | 8-4 | No. 22 |
That 2022 Mississippi State squad lost to Alabama and Georgia by a combined score of 75-25. These aren’t fringe cases — they reflect exactly which programs would flood a 24-team bracket. The current 12-team format already produced embarrassing blowouts when Group of Five programs like Oregon and Ole Miss demolished weaker opponents in the opening round. Doubling down with 24 teams guarantees more of those mismatches, not fewer.
The coaches association frames the expansion as a solution to selection controversy. But the 2025 field demonstrates that argument rings hollow. Alabama entered the playoff with three losses after getting blown out in the SEC Championship Game, leapfrogging a two-loss Notre Dame team that had won ten consecutive games. Adding more teams doesn’t fix a flawed selection process — it just gives the committee more questionable decisions to make.
What a smarter expansion actually looks like
Not every proposed change from the coaches association deserves dismissal. Their suggestion to eliminate conference championship games and compress the gap between the regular season and playoff is genuinely worth debating. Conference title games made sense when the postseason picture was murky and needed clarification. Today, they mostly recycle matchups fans already watched and occasionally knock deserving teams out of contention on a bad afternoon.
The December lull between regular season and bowl games existed largely for academic reasons. Few serious observers pretend that scheduling reality still holds in 2026. Compressing that window could shift the National Championship back toward early January — restoring some of the calendar rhythm the sport lost during recent expansions.
The real disagreement isn’t about whether to expand beyond 12. It’s about how far. The SEC prefers a 16-team format. That position is correct. Sixteen teams accommodates the brutal scheduling reality inside the SEC and Big Ten, where two losses can reflect a genuinely elite schedule rather than mediocrity. It also creates space for deserving Group of Five programs without throwing the doors open to 8-4 teams that have no realistic shot at a national title.
Here’s what a 16-team format preserves that 24 destroys :
- Regular season games retain genuine elimination stakes through November
- Non-conference scheduling incentives remain intact for marquee matchups
- End-of-season rivalry games keep their competitive intensity
- The bracket stays small enough that teams ranked 17th and below understand they haven’t earned a spot
Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti and his conference reportedly favor 24 teams. The coaches association echoes that preference. Both are prioritizing television revenue windows over competitive integrity — and that trade-off will cost the sport its most irreplaceable asset. College football’s regular season is compelling precisely because it is unforgiving. The moment a November loss becomes a minor inconvenience rather than a potential season-ender, casual fans start treating Saturday afternoons the way they treat a mid-March NBA regular season game : watchable background noise, nothing more. Protect the stakes, and you protect the sport.
