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The College Football Playoff will expand to a 24-team bracket in 2027, a change that will reshape scheduling, conference titles and the bowl landscape. The decision alters who qualifies for the postseason and forces several Power 4 programs to rethink how they build their regular-season schedules.
How the new field will be composed
The expanded tournament will include every conference champion from the Power 4—the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC—plus the highest-ranked champion from the Group of 6 (American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12, Sun Belt). The remaining 19 spots will be filled as at-large selections by the CFP selection committee.
The move drew criticism from some fans and observers, a reality CFP executive director Rich Clark acknowledged while speaking to reporters. Still, the change advanced after a unanimous vote by the 10 FBS conferences and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua. According to ESPN, the CFP and ESPN also agreed to a nearly $1.7 billion, five-year deal, which supplements the existing $7.8 billion media-rights package tied to the 12-team format that runs through 2032.
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Conference championship games disappear at the top level
Although conferences were not obliged to eliminate their title games, each of the four power leagues announced they will retire conference championship games after this season. Without those contests, conferences will declare champions based on regular-season records and internal tiebreakers.
That shift raises financial questions. Leagues and programs rely on the revenue those games generate, and some estimates put the potential loss well into the tens of millions. At the SEC spring meetings in May, Georgia coach Kirby Smart voiced the concern directly: “I’m really more worried about the financial burden that we’re under right now of paying for all of the athletic department,” he said. “And when you take that revenue stream [from the SEC championship game] out, can we make it work, and is it sustainable to do without it would be my biggest concern.”
Coaches also warned that removing title games muddies the purpose of conferences. Wake Forest coach Jake Dickert captured that unease: “It can benefit a team like us; it can hurt a team like us,” he said. “But to not say we’re going to have conference champions, why do we have conferences? … Just feels odd.”
More teams, more varied résumés
One clear consequence of expansion is broader access. In the four-team era (2014–23) no two-loss teams reached the Playoff. Under the 12-team format, Clemson is the only program to enter with three regular-season losses. A 24-team bracket widens the margin for error.
Data from the past five seasons suggests the difference would be substantial. Sixty-one different teams across nine conferences would have qualified under a 24-team model. Over that span, 35 teams with three losses and 12 teams with four losses would have earned bids. Only in 2024 would there have been a year without at least one four-loss qualifier.
Mandatory schedule changes for Power 4 programs
The CFP has introduced a new scheduling baseline that aims for uniformity across the top leagues. Starting with the expanded format, every Power 4 program must play at least 10 qualifying regular season games, a mix of conference matchups and nonconference contests against other P4 schools or Notre Dame.
If that rule had applied this season, several notable teams would have failed to meet the requirement. The announcement singled out Indiana—last year’s national champion—as noncompliant, along with Arizona, Houston, Kansas State, Nebraska, Penn State, Texas Tech, USC and Washington.
Programs now being eyed for schedule adjustments heading into 2027 include Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, TCU, Texas Tech and USC. The CFP also clarified that Oregon State and Washington State will count as P4 opponents in 2027. Those games were scheduled while the Pac-12 was still classified as a power conference, before realignment began in 2023, even though the re-formed Pac-12 is now treated as a Group of 6 league.
Within the Group of 6, a parallel 10-game qualifying requirement will apply. That standard allows conference games and nonconference opponents that include another G6 school, a P4 program, Notre Dame or another independent.
Conference game-count alignment
The expansion also standardizes how many conference games teams play. Before the change, the ACC and SEC scheduled eight conference games while the Big Ten and Big 12 played nine. The leagues that previously played eight agreed to move toward nine games beginning in 2026.
This season, 12 programs played nine conference games and five played eight. Under the new structure, 16 teams will play nine conference games annually, with one rotating team scheduled for eight conference games.
What happens to bowl season?
With more postseason berths tied up in the Playoff, the bowl calendar faces an uncertain future. The number of bowl games has grown past 40 in recent years, even as NIL deals and the transfer portal have changed player availability and roster stability.
Industry executives still express strong support for preserving bowl games. Sources say organizers are exploring adjustments to scheduling, conference tie-ins and the overall number of games, but many want bowls to remain part of the postseason landscape.
If the 24-team field had existed last season, most of the additional spots would have gone to Power 4 teams—11 of the 12 extra berths—with the remaining place filled by Notre Dame based on final rankings. In practice, every at-large team from that hypothetical slate except Notre Dame (which declined its bowl) participated in a bowl last season, underscoring how available teams have historically filled the bowl calendar.
Despite questions, a Group of 6 bowl executive director told Front Office Sports in October that they do not expect immediate changes: “I don’t see having to change or do anything different than what we’ve been doing,” the executive director said. “There’s a lot of people who want to speculate about the future of bowl games. … I’ve had conversations with both my conference partners, and as we sit and talk here today, there’s no thoughts in their heads of anything different.”
