College Football Playoff Makes Big Announcement About Team Expansion

The College Football Playoff (CFP) is expanding very soon. The members of the CFP Board of Managers have agreed to begin the playoffs for 12 teams during the 2024-2025 season. This means the final year of the four-team playoff will be in 2023-2024. This news comes shortly after the Rose Bowl agreed to a deal along the CFP to be expanded early.

“We’re delighted to be moving forward,” Bill Hancock, Executive Director of the College Football Playoff, said in a statement. “When the board expanded the playoff beginning in 2026 and asked the CFP Management Committee to examine the feasibility of starting the new format earlier, the Management Committee went right to work. More teams and more access mean more excitement for fans, alumni, students and student-athletes. We appreciate the leaders of the six bowl games and the two future national championship game host cities for their cooperation. Everyone realized that this change is in the best interest of college football and pulled together to make it happen.”  

Round 1 of the playoff in 2024 will start the week ending Saturday, Dec. 21 at the home field of the higher-seeded team or at another site designated by the higher-seeded institution (No. 12 at No. 5, No. 11 at No. 6, No. 10 at No. 7, and No. 9 at No. 8.). The quarterfinal games and two Playoff Semifinal games for the 2024 and 2025 season will be played in bowls on a rotating basis. The Fiesta Bowl, Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl will be the quarterfinal games for the 2024 season, while the Cotton Bowl and Orange Bowl will be the semifinal games. In 2025, the quarterfinal games will be the Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl, while the semifinal games will be the Fiesta Bowl and Peach Bowl. 

The national championship games will be played on Jan. 20, 2025, in Atlanta and on Jan. 19, 2026, in Miami.”On behalf of the Management Committee and the Board of Managers, this is thrilling,” Hancock added. “It’s been a long process, but we are pleased that more teams and more students will have the opportunity to compete for the national championship beginning in the 2024 season. A new era of college football is about to begin. I look forward to it.”

The CFP began in 2014 after the NCAA used the Bowl Championship Series to determine the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision champion from 1998-2013. Since the start of the CFP, Alabama has made the most appearances with seven and won the most championships with three.