How will the College Football Playoff work in 2026? Answering questions about format, expansion and more

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Once again, the College Football Playoff is the dominant talking point ahead of the upcoming football season.

This will be the third year of the 12-team College Football Playoff, and there are a few alterations to the format for the third consecutive season. There is constant conversation about doubling the field to 24 teams in the future, and it's become a conference and network battle with sides being drawn. 

How will Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey manage the 24-team debate? What are the ramifications for college football in the future? 

Here are the answers to the pressing questions about the College Football Playoff heading into 2026 and beyond:

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What is the College Football Playoff format in 2026? 

The 2026 College Football Playoff will have a 12-team format for the third consecutive season. The format, however, has a few new tweaks for this season. 

– Champions from the Power 4 conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC) will receive automatic bids to the College Football Playoff. That means Duke – which won the ACC with a 9-5 record – would have made the College Football Playoff last year under this change. 

– The Group of 6 (American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12, Sun Belt) will still get an automatic berth and it will be the highest-ranked G6 schools in the final rankings. Previously, the five highest-ranked conference champions made the CFP, which allowed No. 20 Tulane (American) and No. 23 James Madison (Sun Belt) to make the CFP last season ahead of unranked ACC champ Duke. JMU would be left out with this change. 

– Notre Dame will be included in the College Football Playoff if it is ranked in the top 12 of the CFP rankings. The Irish were left out of the College Football Playoff in 2025-26 despite being No. 11 in the final CFP rankings last year. No. 10 Miami, which made the CFP championship last season, would get bumped out as a result.

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– The top four teams in the final CFP rankings will get first-round byes. 

– Playoff teams ranked No. 5-8 will host first-round home playoff games on campus. Teams ranked No. 9-12 will play a first-round road game. Using last year's final rankings, this is what the field would have looked like under this format:

What is the College Football Playoff schedule for 2026?

This year, the first round of the College Football Playoff will be played on campus on Dec. 19-20. There will be one game on Dec. 19 and a triple-header on Dec. 20.  

The quarterfinals will be played at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl (Dec. 30) and Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic (Jan. 1), Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl (Jan. 1) and the Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential (Jan. 1). The semifinals will be at Capital One Orange Bowl (Jan. 14) and Allstate Sugar Bowl (Jan. 15).

This year's CFP championship game is on Jan. 25, 2027 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. 

How long is the 12-team College Football Playoff in place? 

The College Football Playoff will stay at 12 teams for the 2026 season. The CFP Management Committee – which is composed of commissioners from the 10 FBS conferences and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua – could not come to an agreement on expansion at their meeting on Jan. 18, 2026.

If the CFP Management Committee does not agree on expansion, then the format will stay at 12 in 2027. The current agreement is for the 12-team College Football Playoff to be in place for the next six years.

The  dates for the 2027 quarterfinals (Dec. 31, 2027 and Jan. 1, 2028), semifinals (Jan. 13-14) and CFP championship are in place with the title game scheduled for Jan. 24, 2028 in New Orleans. 

Dates and times for the 2028-31 College Football Playoff will be announced at a later date.

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When is deadline for CFP expansion for 2027?  

The deadline for a decision on expansion is Dec. 1, 2026. Last year, that date was extended before the CFP announced it would stay at 12 teams on Jan. 23, 2026.

How long does ESPN have rights to the CFP? 

ESPN is the sole media rights holder for the College Football Playoff media rights through the 2031 season, an agreement that was reached on March 19, 2024. The six-year contract is worth $7.8 billion, according to ESPN.com. 

That contract is built for 11 or 13 playoff games – which means if the CFP expanded to 14 teams, ESPN would control the media rights for those games through 2031. 

If the CFP expands to 16 or 24 teams – the remaining games would be subject to negotiations with other networks. That could be part of the reason why there is a push for further CFP expansion.

What is proposed format for a 24-team playoff? 

Petitti has endorsed a 24-team College Football Playoff proposal with one automatic qualifier – a G6 school – with 23 at-large bids based on the CFP rankings. The top eight schools would get first-round byes, and teams 9-24 would play in the first round. That would mean there would 23 College Football Playoff games.

This is how that would have looked, according to last year's final CFP rankings: 

Who is in favor of the 24-team College Football Playoff? 

On May 13, 2026, On3.com's Brett McMurphy reported that Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark and ACC commissioner Jim Phillips were in favor of an expansion to 24 teams. 

"We like 24, we want 24," Yormark told On3. "There are too many teams getting left out and 24 teams provides the type of access that is warranted." 

"Our desire with the coaches and the ADs is 24," Phillips said. "When you're leaving national championship-contending teams out of the playoff, you don't have the right number." 

The Big Ten meetings are this week, and the push for 24 teams continues. Big Ten commissioner Petitti likely will deliver a similar message. That leaves the SEC. What will SEC commissioner Greg Sankey say at the SEC Meetings, which are scheduled for May 26-28?

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