Halt the Hype: Why the College Football Playoff Should Stay at 12 Teams
The College Football Playoff (CFP) stakeholders continue to meet without reaching a consensus on expanding the field beyond 12 teams, a format that is rapidly proving to be the optimal size. Twelve is the perfect balance—it’s big enough to ignite playoff hopes across dozens of programs yet exclusive enough to ensure that every game in the regular season remains consequential. Perhaps the best decision the CFP can make is simply to keep the playoff exactly where it is.
The ongoing discussions among conference commissioners about potential expansion—with formats ranging from 14 to 16 teams, or even larger fields with play-in games—should be abandoned. As CFP Executive Director Rich Clark noted after the latest unresolved meeting, there is a “comfortable” feeling in the room about staying at 12. With the deadline to alter the format for next season looming on December 1, every meeting that ends without an expansion agreement reinforces the case for maintaining the status quo.
The 12-team format has already reshaped the college football regular season for the better. The field is broad enough to allow unexpected contenders, from Georgia Tech to UNLV, to realistically hunt for a bid. Crucially, it remains restricted enough to prevent an average 8-4 Big Ten team from “slithering” in, a risk that arises with larger, more complex formats. The season has not lost significance; instead, it has become more exciting. A loss or even two no longer automatically eliminates a contender, but the damage inflicted by those results remains real and consequential.
This size is tidy, fitting neatly into four rounds, and manages to be fairly exclusive without being overly elitist. While proposals for a 16-team playoff have circulated, a compelling case is emerging for stopping at the current structure. Twelve teams is the number that allows a Cinderella story like Vanderbilt to harbor hope after a dream season, yet appropriately keeps a struggling power like a three-loss Clemson squad underwater. It provides the perfect balance of inclusion and consequence, making it a championship format worth preserving for the foreseeable future.