College Football Playoff Expansion Remains Stalled As Season Approaches

With less than a month until the 2026 college football season begins, the sport’s biggest power brokers remain divided on expanding the College Football Playoff.

The Big Ten’s football media days wrapped in Chicago on Thursday, concluding four consecutive weeks of preseason previews for the Power 4 and most other FBS conferences. Week 0 games will be played on Aug. 29 before Week 1 games begin Sept. 3 ahead of Labor Day weekend.

Throughout the various summer conference gatherings, leaders across the Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC all reiterated their support for an expanded 24-team CFP model—double the number of schools in the current 12-team playoff structure that will enter its third season this fall. There is a fast-approaching Dec. 1 deadline to decide on expanding the CFP for the 2027 season.

“We’re trying to do this together,” Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said Tuesday. “I think there’s been a lot of movement among coaches and ADs around the country that 24 is the right number, but we have to see if it has the right value.”

And while Petitti said he has “never heard” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey “say that he won’t do the work and consider 24” teams for the CFP, the split between the country’s top two conferences is what’s keeping another round of expansion from being greenlit. The Big Ten and SEC control the decision-making power on the CFP management committee—the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua—and must agree on any future format changes.

“Our approach has remained consistent,” Sankey said earlier this month at the SEC’s media days. “We’re not necessarily interested in finding the easiest path; we are focused on finding the right path for college football. Leadership sometimes is not about having an immediate answer.”

Last season, a Dec. 1, 2025, deadline to decide on expansion for the 2026 season was pushed back nearly two months to Jan. 23 before ultimately passing without any decision to expand after leaders were unable to reach a consensus on a new structure. Unless it’s amended by the CFP management committee, the current CFP contract runs through the 2031-32 season, alongside ESPN’s six-year, $7.8 billion media rights extension for playoff games.

The SEC and ACC have expanded their conference schedules for this season, with their teams playing an additional league game, joining the Big Ten and Big 12 at nine conference matchups. However, the Big Ten is the only Power 4 league that doesn’t require teams to play at least one non-conference game against another Power 4 opponent, which has been a point of contention for many within the SEC.

Under the two seasons of the 12-team format, the SEC has placed 8 teams in the CFP, while the Big Ten has sent seven—although Big Ten teams have won the past three national championships: Indiana, Ohio State, and Michigan, dating back to the final year of the four-team playoff. Georgia was the last SEC team to reach the CFP title game in January 2023, when the Bulldogs beat TCU to claim a second consecutive national championship.