Notre Dame-Iowa, Miami-Houston and Texas-Tulane would've been among the new first-round matchups

Oct 15, 2026 at 3:09 pm ET • 2 min read

The College Football Playoff is set to expand to 24 teams in 2027, as sources confirmed to CBS Sports' Matt Zenitz that the CFP and ESPN are nearing completion on a new television contract for the expanded format. 

The specifics won't be known until final approval -- the number of at-large teams versus automatic bids for conference champions -- but the expectation is that the expanded format will bring an end to conference championship games. That means tiebreakers will become even more important to track in these mega-conferences, where half the teams don't play each other. 

While we await official details on the format, scheduling and everything else, we can look back at history to see what the 24-team playoff would look like and what kinds of teams it will bring into the fold. The expected format would give the top 8 seeds first-round byes (up from the current top 4), and teams No. 9 through No. 24 would play in eight first-round games. 

If we go back to the final rankings before the 2025 conference championship games, we can see what that looks like in action. 

24-team 2025 College Football Playoff

First-round byes

1. Ohio State
2. Indiana
3. Georgia
4. Texas Tech
5. Oregon
6. Ole Miss
7. Texas A&M
8. Oklahoma

First-round matchups

9. Alabama vs. 24. North Texas
10. Notre Dame vs. 23. Iowa
11. BYU vs. 22. Georgia Tech
12. Miami vs. 21. Houston
13. Texas vs. 20. Tulane
14. Vanderbilt vs. 19. Michigan
15. Utah vs. 18. Arizona
16. USC vs. 17. Virginia

The seeding wouldn't change regardless of the format they choose -- provided automatic byes are removed for conference winners -- as all four Power Four programs that would've won their conference via tiebreakers are in the top 24 in the rankings. 

Oregon, Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Oklahoma would've all gotten byes rather than playing a first-round game. 13 new teams would be brought into the playoff: Notre Dame, BYU, Texas, Vanderbilt, Utah, USC, Arizona, Michigan, Virginia, Houston, Georgia Tech, Iowa and North Texas -- with James Madison becoming the odd team out. 

Among the arguments in favor of the 24-team playoff is that the expanded first round would create more matchups between teams of similar talent. In 2025, basically every game after the first two would've been fairly interesting on paper, and it would create some matchups that would previously have been hard to believe were CFP games. 

The new format also adds an additional game to the schedule for those outside the top eight and those in the top four. Miami would've had to play an additional game against Houston before facing Oregon in the second round, adding another layer of difficulty for teams outside the top eight to make a run to the championship game. 

National champion Indiana, meanwhile, would've faced the winner of Utah-Arizona before then playing the winner of Texas A&M vs. Notre Dame/Iowa. 

It's also important to note the human element in the rankings, and there's a distinct possibility that the top 25 would look different if the committee had to contend with a deeper field and a different cutoff. One wonders whether Tulane and North Texas would both make the field, or whether teams from the Power Four might get some of those rankings further down in the top 25. 

That will all be determined in 2027 once this new format becomes reality, as college football adapts to its latest massive change.