Earlier this week it was reported that the College Football Playoff would be expanding to include 24 teams starting next year.
While the timeline is a bit earlier than many expected, the expansion to 24 teams was widely viewed as inevitable after the playoff’s initial expansion. Now it has come to pass.
Critics of the expansion argue that adding so many more teams to the playoff field means that the regular season will matter less in college football. They have a point. In the BCS era and even into the four-team playoff, a single loss on a team’s season could make the playoffs unattainable. With 12 teams (but just seven at-large bids) in the current format, a single loss probably doesn’t totally end your season, but a second might. Expanding to 24 teams, it’s fair to wonder if a team like Alabama or Notre Dame will ever miss the playoff again.
One man who is not concerned? Colin Cowherd.
On Friday, Cowherd criticized the “romancers” arguing that a bigger playoff field would result in a diminished regular season.
“Expanding the playoffs to 24 teams means that now 17% of college football teams, 17%, will now make the playoffs,” Cowherd said. “In the NFL, it’s 44%, and yet it’s never killed our interest in the regular season. Hockey it’s 50%, NBA it’s 67%. So I don’t buy that.”
Cowherd said that many critics of expansion were also critics of NIL, arguing that the new rules would be bad for “the little guy,” compared to schools that could always afford to spend more. The opposite proved true, as we all saw with Indiana’s title run last year, but as Cowherd argued, if you’re for supporting the little guy, how could you possibly be against expansion?
“This is introduced, which is good for the little guy. You can lose three games and get in. You don’t have to beat Ohio State. You don’t have to beat Oregon,” Cowherd said. “This is good for the little guy, you don’t like that either. So what is it? To me, more inclusive is never a bad thing. I am for more opportunity. NIL — more opportunity for kids to get paid. Transfer portal — more opportunity to find the right fit. 24 teams — more opportunity for teams to get in that can’t maybe, tough schedule. Can’t beat Indiana, Michigan back to back. Or Ohio State, Oregon back to back.”
Cowherd noted the rising number of teams that opted out of bowl games last year, saying that pivoting away from the old system meant that the postseason would matter again.
“We’re getting rid of useless bowl games. We’re getting rid of, which I never liked, conference championship games. I want a really, really good regular season, right into a big playoff. You know, like all of our professional leagues that are more popular than our college leagues,” he said. “The idea that having a playoff that just includes 17% of the teams will kill the regular season, the NFL allows in 44%, and the ratings keep going up.”
“Expanding the playoffs to 24 teams means that now 17% of college football teams will make the playoffs. In the NFL it’s 44% and yet it’s never killed our interest in the regular season.”
@colincowherd doesn’t buy that a 24-team playoff will kill college football https://t.co/AWFPBx2gHY
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) October 16, 2026
Cowherd is right that an expanded postseason hasn’t hurt the NFL, and if you want to say that the percentage of teams that make the playoff is a relevant factor, that works — though it’s worth noting that if you cut down the entire college football world to the power conferences, the numbers get a lot tighter.
Across the ACC, SEC, Big Ten and Big 12, there are 67 programs, and for good measure let’s throw Notre Dame in this group as well to get to 68. Even if four schools from the Group of Six made the new expanded playoff (which feels like a reach), you’re still looking at roughly 30% of the power programs playing in the postseason.
Ultimately though, Cowherd’s thesis is correct. The 24-team playoff will not, in fact, kill college football. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, or even anything more than a naked money grab. It just means that college football is a great sport, and really hard to kill.
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