With this year’s College Football Playoff officially in the books, attention shifts to the 2026–27 postseason, which will have a number of notable changes—and still has some unresolved questions.
In the meantime, the Big Ten continues to dominate the current era of the CFP, with the conference winning each of the last three national championships, following a four-year streak for the SEC. The Big Ten’s Ohio State, Indiana, and Oregon are already among the top betting favorites to win next year’s title. The SEC’s Texas is one of the favorites, too, alongside Notre Dame.
Bigger Is Better?
The biggest unknown lingering over the CFP is whether it will expand from 12 to 16 teams.
The CFP management committee—the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua—ended a Sunday meeting without a decision on expansion. There is a hard Friday deadline, which was pushed back from Dec. 1, to inform ESPN of any format changes for the 2026–27 season.
Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and the SEC’s Greg Sankey have the ultimate sign-off and must agree for a new format to go forward. But Petitti has pushed for a 24-team model, while Sankey has pushed for a 16-team model.
Expanding to 16 teams would create four more first-round games, which have been played at home campus stadiums the past two years.
Best of the Rest
The Pac-12 is relaunching later this year with seven new teams (including six full-time FBS football-playing members) and fresh media-rights deals.
But the Pac-12, previously a part of the Power 5 league, will now be considered part of the new Group of 6 conferences, whose place in the CFP picture has been a point of controversy for some. This season, two Group of 6 schools—Tulane and James Madison—reached the CFP, due to the current format that gives automatic bids to the five highest-ranked conference champions.
However, that’s changing next season, as the champions of the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC will get automatic CFP bids, regardless of their rankings. The highest-ranked Group of 6 conference champion will also get an automatic bid. If Notre Dame is ranked inside the top 12, it will also receive an automatic bid.
Meanwhile, Bowl Season organizers would support facilitating a separate Group of 6 playoff, if those conferences wanted to crown their own national champion. CFP leaders would need to meet further to make any more changes regarding the Group of 6’s standing.
Mark Your Calendar
Next season’s CFP title game will be played in Las Vegas for the first time, and on the latest date in the matchup’s history: Jan. 25, 2027.
The next three CFP national championship contests will be played on the fourth Monday of January, before the 2030 games shifts back to the third Monday of the month (Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend). Next year’s sporting calendar is creating later dates than normal for other leagues, too. The 2027 Super Bowl will be played on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, also that game’s latest date ever.
ESPN’s six-year, $7.8 billion media-rights extension also kicks in next season, which will put the CFP title game on ABC for the first time, alongside simulcasts on ESPN and other Disney-owned platforms.
