College Football Playoff sticking with 12-team format
The College Football Playoff will remain a 12-team bracket for the 2026 season, the committee announced Friday.
The next campaign will mark the third year of using this format since adopting it in 2024.
"After ongoing discussion about the 12-team playoff format, the decision was made to continue with the current structure," College Football Playoff executive director Rich Clark said in a statement.
"This will give the management committee additional time to review the 12-team format, so they can better assess the need for potential change. While they all agree the current format has brought more excitement to college football and has given more schools a real shot in the postseason, another year of evaluation will be helpful."
Although the format isn't expanding, the selection process will change. Automatic bids will be awarded to each Power 4 conference winner regardless of record, and Notre Dame will receive an at-large bid if it's ranked in the top 12 of the final College Football Playoff poll, reports On3's Pete Nakos.
If those changes had been in place for this past season, Duke and Notre Dame would have been included in the field at the expense of James Madison and national runner-up Miami.
Multiple proposals to expand to either 16 or 24 teams were submitted, but the SEC and Big Ten were unable to reach a resolution, sources told Yahoo's Ross Dellenger.
The Big Ten has been pushing for a 24-team model and was willing to move to a 16-team format in 2026 if there was a pledge to expand to 24 in the coming years, reports Nakos. The SEC and the other eight conferences, as well as Notre Dame, are intent on a 16-team format.
The College Football Playoff committee, composed of 10 conference commissioners, met earlier this week.
"We're only in Year 2 of our 12-team format, so I reminded my colleagues that from when we had the very first notion of going beyond just a four-team playoff to actually having a 12-team playoff, it took five years," College Football Board chair and Mississippi State president Mark Keenum said this week.
Keenum added, "The fact that we're having conversations is a good thing, but there are a lot of things to weigh in on this. All the presidents of all the conferences are speaking through their commissioners, and they're negotiating this. So we'll see where it plays out."
The playoffs expanded to 12 teams in 2024 after a 10-year run using a four-team format. Indiana and Ohio State are the two champions since the bracket expanded.