College Football Playoff To Keep Current Four-Team Format

On Feb 18, 2022

Although there have been multiple discussions about expansion, the College Football Playoff announced on Friday that it will continue to use a four-team format through the length of its original contract with ESPN, which expires after the 2025 season.

“The board of managers has accepted a recommendation from the management committee to continue the current four-team playoff for the next four years, as called for in the CFP’s original 12-year plan,” CFP executive director Bill Hancock said in a statement. “At the same time, the board expects the management committee to continue its discussions of a new format that would go into effect for the 2026-27 season.

“Even though the outcome did not lead to a recommendation for an early expansion before the end of the current 12-year contract, the discussions have been helpful and informative. I am sure they will serve as a useful guide for the board of managers and for the management committee as we determine what the playoff will look like beginning in the 2026-2027 season.

“I thank the working group for its hard work that resulted in the 12-team proposal, and the management committee for its thorough and diligent job reviewing it and other possible expansion ideas. This has been a long, careful, and detailed process that involved many people considering a complex matter. I am grateful to everyone for their dedication to college football and the detailed and deliberative effort everyone put into the consideration of a different format. I know the four-team event will continue to be successful.”

Last summer, a working group consisting of Big XII commissioner Bob Bowlsby, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick and Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson proposed changing the format from four to 12 teams.

Under the proposed format, the playoff would include the six highest-ranked conference champions and the six remaining highest-ranked as determined by the selection committee. There would not be any automatic bids for conferences nor would there be any limits on the number of participants from a single conference.

The four highest-ranked conference champions would be seeded No. 1-4 and receive a first-round bye, while the teams seeded No. 5-12 would play on the home field of the higher-ranked team.

The quarterfinals and semifinals would be played in bowl games, presumably those that make up the current College Football Playoff rotation (Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton, Peach and Fiesta bowls), while the championship game would be at another neutral site, as it has been since the playoff was implemented during the 2014 season.

The current format, meanwhile, takes the top four teams as voted on by the selection committee and places them into two of the aforementioned bowls, which rotate on a three-year cycle. The winners then meet in the College Football Playoff National Championship.

That said, the news that the playoff will continue to operate under a four-team format comes just two days after Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said he would be surprised if the playoff did not eventually expand to 12 teams.

“I think we’re going to expand,” Smith said. “I think there’s things that just need to be solved and worked out. I think we’re going to get there. I just think we have to keep working through these little interests that each conference has. Some people will have to sacrifice and give up some of those interests. It’s a negotiation, so I think we’ll get there. I hope we get there because I think it’s a cool thing. I really do.”