Winners and Losers of the Expanded 24-Team College Football Playoff

Like yet another Fast and Furious movie or an umpteenth installment in the Shrek franchise, the 24-team College Football Playoff, despite little interest from fans, is here.

The expanded CFP features a five-year deal with ESPN worth approximately $1.7 billion and significantly alters the college football landscape, whether it’s the increased number of at-large bids into the playoff, the death of conference championship games, the potential changes to nonconference scheduling and yes, the fate of America’s beloved bowl games.

With such seismic consequences, here are the winners and losers of the 24-team CFP.

Winner: Notre Dame

Notre Dame’s automatic inclusion clause in this year’s CFP, a free handout for the Fighting Irish after they cried foul following last year’s snub, won’t be a thing anymore in the 24-team playoff. But don’t weep for the Irish. Because Power 4 teams now must play at least 10 conference and nonconference games against Power 4 opponents and Notre Dame, the Irish will theoretically be playing more high-profile games than ever before, a boon for their media rights deal with NBC.

But won’t tougher games mean the Irish have a better chance of missing a 24-team playoff? Nah. There’s a reason Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman is an avid supporter of the expanded playoff. Excluding this year, he’s made the CFP just one time in five seasons, with two seasons in a four-team format. But in those five years, Freeman hasn’t lost more than four games in a season, which is more than enough to get into a 24-team playoff. In short, it’s now virtually impossible for the Irish to miss the CFP.

Loser: The standards of excellence

Think back to a faraway land—at least it feels that way now—where a four-team CFP existed. In such a land, it would behoove you to go undefeated to make it into the playoff, it would benefit you to limit your losses in a season to just one, and it would severely hamper your chances if you lost more than two games. There was a standard of excellence.

In the expanded 12-team format, we began to see the standards of what a playoff-caliber team is decline, as two- and three-loss teams were welcomed into the fold. In a 24-team playoff? Come on down, three-loss teams. Make yourself comfortable, four-loss teams. And perhaps there might be room for you too, five-loss team (gasp). Sure, the expanded access is great for schools that normally may not have a shot at the CFP. But that expanded access has come at the cost of depreciating standards of greatness.

Winner: CFP home games

After years of neutral-site games, the CFP for the first time introduced four home games for higher seeds in the 12-team playoff in 2024. So far, those games have been incredibly valuable to the higher seeds, which have gone 7–1. In the 24-team playoff, there will now be two rounds of games in which the contest is played at the higher seed’s home stadium.

Aside from the added home field advantage for a greater number of teams, on-campus playoff games simply have more juice and more energy. They provide the host school’s fans an opportunity to watch their team in the playoff without having to travel to an NFL stadium and pay a fortune for a ticket. And they welcome the kind of game-day atmospheres that the sport needs more of, not less, making this one of the clear victories of an expanded CFP format.

A military flyover prior to the 2025 first-round game between Tulane and Mississippi Rebels at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Loser: Dumb quotes justifying the decision to expand the CFP

You really do need to turn on your b.s.-o-meter when you listen to some of college football’s power brokers justify their decision to expand the playoff, which has been less than popular with the majority of fans.

Such as CFP executive director Rich Clark, who had this to say when asked for his thoughts on fans who oppose the 24-team format.

“We’re aware of the fan sentiment and that many fans aren’t in favor of expansion, but that was certainly weighed into the decision,” Clark said. “It was considered, but ultimately, we just need to make a spectacular playoff.”

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In other words, we know you really wanted pizza for dinner and we considered that you wanted pizza for dinner but we’re making you liver and onions instead.

Or, consider SEC commissioner Greg Sankey’s explanation of the decision to expand the playoff.

“There’s not an enormous amount of money in this decision,” Sankey told ESPN’s Paul Finebaum. “It is about access, number of teams.”

Ahhh, the decision not rooted in an enormous amount of money. Right. You mean the decision in which the contract between ESPN and the CFP is worth roughly $1.7 billion. That decision? Or the millions of dollars that go to the conferences for every team they see qualify for the CFP, in which there are now more available spots. That decision? If someone says it’s not about the money or money isn’t the chief reason for doing something, it means that money is almost certainly the chief reason they’re doing something.

Winner: Mid Power 4 teams

On paper, Group of 6 teams are a beneficiary of the 24-team playoff, given that there are many more at-large bids up for grabs now. But there’s just one automatic bid for Group of 6 teams, compared to four for the Power 4 conferences. And do we really think the CFP selection committee is going to seriously consider a one- or two-loss Group of 6 team compared to a three- or four-loss Power 4 outfit, especially with how much they weigh strength of schedule?

No, the real winners of the 24-team CFP are the middling, three-, four- and even five-loss Power 4 teams, who normally would be on the outside looking in for the playoff but will now get to compete for a championship at the expense of perhaps more deserving Group of 6 teams.

Loser: CFP selection committee

You thought the CFP committee’s job was difficult with a 12-team playoff? Hoo boy. Buckle up, because the committee is now responsible for evaluating résumés to determine 19 at-large bids, as opposed to six or seven this season, a responsibility they haven’t exactly knocked out of the park, I might add. Get ready for plenty of headaches.

But they’ll also now have to rank as many as 30, possibly even 35 teams, to give fans, pundits and teams an idea of who’s on the CFP bubble and yes, to create television drama. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti at the conference’s spring meetings expressed skepticism that the committee is going to be able to fairly evaluate résumés in the expanded field. And it’s not hard to see why. The committee, whether it looks the same or different, is going to have an even tougher task in the age of the 24-team CFP.

Loser: Bowl games

In each of the last two seasons, there were 82 bowl-eligible teams, 12 of which participated in the CFP, leaving 70 programs to play in bowl games. An extra 12 will now be headed to the CFP in a 24-team format. If the 24-team playoff existed last year, there would still be plenty of teams available to play in bowl games—58—but there’s no doubt the quality of those bowl games would look far different in an expanded CFP landscape.

Heck, maybe angry college football fans will turn to bowl games in a form of silent protest of the 24-team playoff. Or perhaps there will still be enough quality teams out there to field compelling bowl games. But it’s hard not to look at bowl games, especially the more high-profile ones, as a rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul situation when it comes to the expanded CFP.

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