Pat Forde: The Latest CFP Rankings Show Why a 24-Team Playoff Will Be a Disaster

If Tuesday night’s College Football Playoff rankings were next year’s 24-team field, what a celebration of underachievers we would have.

At No. 21: LSU, which is 6–3 and has its own fans furious. The Tigers are one loss from quittin’ time and own zero victories over anyone in the top 25 of the Sagarin Ratings. But they’d be in the tournament, and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey would be trumpeting that remarkable achievement by a team that could be headed to the Music City Bowl in any other season.

At No. 20: Ohio State, which is also 6–3 and has already commenced the scapegoating for this disaster by firing its special teams coach. The Buckeyes have lost consecutive regular-season games for the first time in 15 years, have lost consecutive games by double digits for the first time in 22 years and played out the final minutes of a home blowout against Oregon in front of thousands of empty seats. You think that fan base wants to see this team play a December road game at No. 13 Wake Forest?

At No. 18: USC (7–2), whose fans still haven’t decided whether they want to keep Lincoln Riley around as coach. The reward for scuttling into the bracket would be one of Riley’s favorite things—another voyage to the Midwest, to play No. 15 Iowa. Iowa City is lovely in mid-December, and an easy commute to arrange at the last minute for fans coming from Los Angeles.

At No. 17: South Carolina (6–3), which was completely out on coach Shane Beamer five games into the season. The Gamecocks’ first-round opponent would be No. 16 Oregon (6–3), which fired its offensive coordinator weeks ago. Not exactly a couple of dream seasons unfolding. Like an NCAA men’s basketball tournament play-in game, this should be contested in Dayton.

This is the sprawling mediocrity the leaders of college football will foist upon us from 2027 through ’31 … for now. You never know when the commissioners are going to mess with it again, deciding that 30 is a fine number. Or 40 is doable. They’ll never rest until every Big Ten and SEC team is in the field.

The latest CFP bracket projection of the season 👀 pic.twitter.com/OuOkwTElOP
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) November 11, 2026

There is no groundswell of support for doubling the format from the current 12 to 24—in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Every attempt to gauge public sentiment about the 24-team playoff has generated one consistent response: No thanks. CFP executive director Rich Clark at least didn’t blatantly lie when asked on a teleconference Monday about the low approval rating for this sham.

“We’re aware of the fan sentiment and that many fans aren’t in favor of expansion,” Clark said. “That was certainly weighed into the decision. It was considered. Ultimately we just need to make a spectacular playoff. I mean, the CFP has a responsibility to our fans, they’re the lifeblood of college football. We owe it to them to make this great. That really is our intent. We appreciate our fans. We did take into account their sentiment. That was rolled into this decision. But we decided to move forward with it.”

Translation: We don’t care. Burn the boats and keep going.

The feckless commissioners and their self-interested athletic directors and coaches have persisted, because they believe it will make their lives easier when it comes to raising money to fund rosters. (It might also decrease fan patience. Because if your team isn’t good enough to make a field filled with this many slightly above-average teams, why should the coaches and administrators keep their jobs?)

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So we will be blessed with snake oil in a bigger bottle. The schools will not be making a massive amount of new money, trading off the revenue once derived from conference championship games for a moderate bump in media-rights revenue.

ESPN wasn’t going to splurge unnecessarily on first-round games that are unlikely to draw huge audiences. An SEC rehash of No. 22 Missouri at No. 11 Kentucky—potentially played on a weeknight—is not going to be ratings gold. Nor would a Big 12 rehash of No. 23 Arizona at No. 10 BYU. Or that USC-Iowa Big Ten matchup.

When the 24-team playoff became official on Monday, part of the CFP’s rollout was a graphic showing what the 2024 bracket would have looked like.

If the 24-team #CFP was in place for the 2024-25 season, the bracket would've looked like this 👀🏆 pic.twitter.com/WlLp0W0Pwy
— CFP (@CFBPlayoff) November 9, 2026

A guess at why 2024 was preferable to ’25: There were three Group of 6 teams in the theoretical ’24 field, including Army. Who would be against a tournament that gives one-eighth of its slots to the putative little guys, including a service academy?

There would have been two G6 schools in the 24-team field last season—the same two that were in the 12-team field, James Madison and Tulane. Expanding the tourney wouldn’t have added any mid-major diversity.

As for this year’s theoretical 24: Just one G6 team would be in as of today (and, frankly that isn’t changing over the next four weeks). For now that’s Boise State. The other bids? Oh boy.

How about nine for the SEC, which would make much of the rest of the country vomit (or, worse, turn off their TVs). Then six for the Big Ten, five for the Big 12 and just two for the ACC. The other bid, of course, goes to Notre Dame, which can set its program on playoff autopilot for the foreseeable future.

There will be so much more to dislike about the 2027 College Football Playoff. It will be a cluttered festival of mediocrity, with participation trophies for teams that even their own fan bases will be tired of watching by December. All you have to do is look at this year’s rankings to see what a farce the future of college football will be.

This is what happens when self-interest trumps public trust.

PODCAST: Listen to Sports Illustrated’s college sports podcast, Others Receiving Votes, hosted by Pat Forde, on Apple and Spotify. Watch the show on SI’s college YouTube channel or on SI TV.

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