What a 24-team College Football Playoff looks like
The playoff doubles to 24 teams starting next season, and conference title games go away. Here is how it will work, and what this season’s bracket would look like if the new rules applied now.
Projected 2026 bracket with 24 teams
Built from our projection: real results so far, the favorite winning every game left and our projection of the committee’s final ranking. 12 of these teams would miss today’s 12-team field. Favorites all the way through make Georgia the champion. Pick your own results in the season simulator.
The projected field
| Seed | Team | Record | How they got in | In a 12-team field? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (bye) |  Georgia | 12–1 | SEC champion | Yes |
| 2 (bye) |  Utah | 13–0 | Big 12 champion | Yes |
| 3 (bye) |  Alabama | 10–3 | At-large | Yes |
| 4 (bye) |  Notre Dame | 11–1 | At-large | Yes |
| 5 (bye) |  Miami | 12–1 | ACC champion | Yes |
| 6 (bye) |  Indiana | 11–2 | At-large | Yes |
| 7 (bye) |  BYU | 10–2 | At-large | Yes |
| 8 (bye) |  Texas | 9–3 | At-large | Yes |
| 9 |  LSU | 9–3 | At-large | Yes |
| 10 |  Houston | 10–2 | At-large | Yes |
| 11 |  UCLA | 12–1 | Big Ten champion | Yes |
| 12 |  Iowa | 10–2 | At-large | No |
| 13 |  Tennessee | 9–3 | At-large | No |
| 14 |  Oregon | 9–3 | At-large | No |
| 15 |  Ohio State | 9–3 | At-large | No |
| 16 |  Oklahoma State | 9–3 | At-large | No |
| 17 |  USC | 9–3 | At-large | No |
| 18 |  Texas Tech | 10–3 | At-large | No |
| 19 |  Wake Forest | 10–3 | At-large | No |
| 20 |  Boise State | 11–1 | Top Group of 6 team | Yes |
| 21 |  New Mexico | 12–1 | At-large | No |
| 22 |  Liberty | 12–1 | At-large | No |
| 23 |  Missouri | 8–4 | At-large | No |
| 24 |  Louisville | 9–3 | At-large | No |
The rules
When it starts. The 2027 season. This season’s playoff stays at 12 teams, and this year’s Power 4 title games are the last ones. (AP)
Who gets in. Five automatic bids: the SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Big 12 champions, plus the highest-ranked team from the American, Conference USA, the MAC, the Mountain West, the Pac-12 and the Sun Belt. The other 19 spots go to the highest-ranked teams left in the selection committee’s final ranking. Notre Dame no longer gets a guaranteed spot. (AP, Sports Illustrated)
No conference title games. Each conference decides its own champion another way. How they will do that hasn’t been announced. (Sports Illustrated)
Seeding and byes. Teams are seeded 1 to 24 in ranking order, and the top eight seeds get a first-round bye. (AP, Yahoo Sports)
First round. Seeds 9 to 16 host seeds 24 to 17 on campus: 9 vs 24, 10 vs 23 and so on. The 9–24 winner plays No. 8. (Sports Illustrated)
Second round. The top eight seeds host the first-round winners on campus. That makes 16 campus games, up from four. (AP, Sports Illustrated)
Quarterfinals and semifinals. At the Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, Peach, Rose and Sugar Bowls. (Sports Illustrated)
Championship. Jan. 24, 2028, in New Orleans. (Sports Illustrated, CBS Sports)
Schedule. The playoff starts the second weekend of December. Army–Navy and the Heisman ceremony move up a week, and the 2027 season starts a week earlier. (AP, Sports Illustrated)
Eligibility. Power 4 teams must play at least 10 games against Power 4 opponents to be eligible: nine conference games plus one more. (Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports)
TV. ESPN and ABC carry all 23 games under a five-year, $1.7 billion addition to ESPN’s deal, which runs through the 2031 season. (AP)
Not decided yet
- How conferences pick a champion without a title game.
- The second-round pairings beyond 8 vs the 9–24 winner. We use a standard bracket: 1 vs 16/17, 2 vs 15/18, 3 vs 14/19 and so on, with no reseeding.
- Which bowls host which quarterfinals and semifinals, and the TV schedule.
- Whether the committee changes how it ranks teams, or ranks more than 25.
How this projection works
This season still has conference title games, so the projection uses the projected title game winners as champions. Our committee ranking comes from how the real committee moved teams from 2014 to 2025, so treat the field as an educated guess, especially the last few spots. The full simulator lets you change any result and switch between the 12-team and 24-team brackets.
Open the season simulator or read how this season’s 12-team playoff works.
Sources: AP, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports. The College Football Playoff hadn’t posted the full format on its own site when this page was written (Nov. 9, 2026).