ESPN's Rece Davis Sounds Off On College Football Playoff Expanding To 24 Teams
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With the College Football Playoff on the verge of moving to a 24-team field, tons and tons of voices in college football have spoken out against the idea. The latest to add their thoughts to the discussion is College GameDay host Rece Davis.
Appearing on The Next Round Live, Davis called the 24-team idea "preposterous" and feels that even an expansion to 16 teams would come close to that moniker. He feels that the ideal way to improve the College Football Playoff would be to instead institute an extra round of home games on campus.
Davis also believes that the coaches who are supporting this change may come to regret it as all it will do is shift the goalpost from merely making the playoffs to winning multiple postseason games, like the NFL has seen.
“I think 24 is preposterous, and 16 is bordering on it. I wish they would leave it at 12 and do an extra round of games on campus,” Davis said. “Right now, the struggle is largely due to business and control, and it’s not necessarily for the good of the game. And the coaches who are getting behind this… think it’s going to save their jobs. It’s not… Making the Playoff, sooner or later, will be like in the NFL. NFL coaches, NBA coaches get fired all the time for (just) making the playoffs and not advancing as far as the leadership thinks they should. And that’s going to happen (in college football) too.”
"I think 24 is preposterous and 16 is bordering on it." – @ReceDavis on College Football Playoff expansion pic.twitter.com/wZKTuEy7Nt
— The Next Round (@NextRoundLive) May 15, 2026
Davis went on to say that he isn't even convinced that there will be fewer controversies over who gets in than there were in 2025.
“If that is your motivation, that it’ll be easier to get in the Playoff, you’ll have fewer controversies, all of those types of things that you hear, you’re fooling yourself,” Davis continued. “You’re going to continue to have those problems and coaches are going to get hired and fired just as they always have.”
The Big Fear in the biggest games
Davis also reiterated the growing concern that an increased field would completely erase the stakes in some of the historic rivalry games like The Game between Michigan and Ohio State. He pointed out that if both teams have already clinched the playoffs, they might rest star players for a game that for decades has all but eliminated the loser from national title contention.
“The regular season in college football still remains the best in all of sports. You want it to matter. And you don’t want to ever get to a point where… Michigan and Ohio State are resting people because they’re going to play next week,” Davis said. “Hopefully, wiser heads will prevail and keep this Playoff at a manageable number, and keep the calendar in a manageable space of time. And it’s actually too long now."
He did, however, offer one thing that he is eager to see: The national title getting wrapped up before the final week of January.
“Playing on January 25th is entirely too late… we need to get a handle on the calendar and the framework and move (forward) from there.”
Will the powers that be in the College Football Playoff heed Rece Davis' advice?
This story was originally published by The Spun on May 15, 2026, where it first appeared in the College Football section. Add The Spun as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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