Calls for the expansion of the College Football Playoff began as soon as it replaced the Bowl Championship Series ahead of the 2014 season. Seven years later, those calls are on their way to being answered. A College Football Playoff working group is set to formally recommend Thursday expanding the four-team field to 12 teams, according to CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd.
That 12-team model would invite the top six conference champions and six at-large teams into the field. In this format, the top four conference champions would get byes in the first round and the other eight teams will have first-round games on the campuses of the next four highest-ranked teams.
The working group’s recommendation will be discussed and vetted next week at a previously scheduled CFP Management Committee meeting on June 17-18. The committee is made up of the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick.
Other elements of the working group’s proposal included the following:
- While the playoff calendar is still to be worked out, broadly this is the recommendation:
- The playoff bracket would follow the rankings, with no modifications made to avoid rematches of teams that may have played during the regular-season or are from the same conference;
- The bracket would remain in effect throughout the playoff (i.e., no re-seeding);
- The working group’s charge did not include deciding which bowls might be a part of the CFP in the future; however the group did recommend that if traditional bowls host games, teams would be assigned to their traditional bowls for quarterfinal games with priority going to the higher-seeded team;
- All 11 games would be under the CFP umbrella, with the administrative specifications and the process for selecting the six bowls that would rotate as hosts of the quarterfinals and semifinals still to be determined.
Sources tell @RossDellenger and I: Expect news this afternoon from the College Football Playoff management committee. After a meeting today, a release is coming based on a recommendation for an expanded playoff.
— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) June 10, 2021
The College Football Playoff committee is meeting next week and will consider expanding to a 12-team playoff featuring the 6 highest-ranked conference champions and the 6 other highest ranked teams. https://t.co/s6Ovx4B67p
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) June 10, 2021