Oregon's Dan Lanning Speaks Openly About Potential Playoff Expansion

Oregon Ducks coach Dan Lanning went on The Rich Eisen Show this past week to talk about the potential expansion of the College Football Playoff.

Dan Lanning on Expanding Playoff: "It Makes Sense"

oregon ducks dan lanning college football playoff big ten conference expansion national championship bcs title game — Jul 29, 2026; Chicago, IL, USA; Oregon Football head coach Dan Lanning speaks during Big Ten Media Days at Hilton Chicago. Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Talk of the College Football Playoff expanding has been a topic of conversation. Rich Eisen asked Lanning about this.

“I’m great with four. I’m great with 12. Ideally, if we’re talking about it’s a TV problem, you have to generate more revenue. If you have to generate more revenue, what does that mean? It means add more teams,” Lanning said. “It doesn’t necessarily make sense for Oregon to add more playoff teams…but I do think it makes sense for college football.”

"I'm great with four. I'm great with twelve. ... But I do think it makes sense for college football [to add more teams]."

Oregon HC Dan Lanning speaks on the possible CFP expansion 🏈

(via @richeisenshow) pic.twitter.com/xVQKsvNfSg
— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) August 14, 2026

In addition to his point about the extra TV revenue, Lanning listed some other points why it would make sense for college football to expand the playoff. He talked about how more fans would be engaged, less players would be sitting out of bowl games, and not as many players would enter the transfer portal during this time. The college football calendar has been a problem with the portal overlapping with games.

Lanning has led Oregon to the playoff the last two seasons. In 2024, they were the No, 1 ranked team and in 2025 they were the No. 5 ranked team. The Ducks were comfortably in the field in both of these seasons, and this is just with 12 teams. It would be even easier access for Oregon to make it if it was a 24-team field.

The College Football Playoff format is relatively new. It was first implemented in the 2014 college football season with the top four ranked teams making it the field. This was different to the previous years of the BCS era, where there would be two teams selected to play in the national championship game following conference title weekend.

This four team playoff lasted from 2014-2023, with multiple teams ranked outside the top two winning national championships. Prior to the 2024 season, conference realignment happened.

The SEC and Big Ten added schools like Oregon, USC, Washington, Texas, and Oklahoma while the Pac-12 was completely gutted except for Washington State and Oregon State. The Big 12 lost some of its big brands with Oklahoma and Texas going to the SEC, but was able to pick up teams like Colorado and the Arizona schools from the Pac-12. The ACC also added teams like Stanford and Cal from the Pac-12.

With this completely new landscape in college football, a change had to be made to the playoff. In 2024, a 12 team playoff was implemented. In the first year of this expanded playoff, the No. 8 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes won the national title, beating No. 1 Oregon in the process.

This showed that just because a team had a few slip ups during the regular season and may not be ranked that high, there is still a way they can win a national title if they get in the dance.

Sign up to our free newsletter and follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram for the latest news.

Add us as a preferred source on Google