Report: College Football Playoff to stick with 12-team format

The College Football Playoff will remain a 12-team bracket for the 2026 season, sources told ESPN's Pete Thamel.

A formal announcement is scheduled for Friday, Thamel reports. The next campaign will mark the third year of using this format since adopting it in 2024.

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.

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.