A bold College Football Playoff thought: 12 is a number worth keeping
- Recent meetings among CFP stakeholders have ended without a decision to expand the playoff beyond 12 teams.
- A 12-team field is seen as a good balance, making the regular season more exciting without being too large.
Twelve is the number. It’s like the number 10, except better.
Twelve days of Christmas. Twelve months in a year, 12 inches in a foot, 12 hours on a clock. Eggs by the dozen.
A package of 12 chilled cans, each filled with 12 ounces of goodness.
Now, let’s hear it for 12 teams in the College Football Playoff.
We’ve heard the potential playoff expansion formats that range from the rational to the ridiculous. Fourteen teams? Sixteen? Thirty-two? Play-in games? Rig the format to Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti’s liking?
Forget that. Twelve is the number.
The longer these playoff negotiations go, the more likely that 12 stays the number.
Another meeting of CFP stakeholders came and went this week in Illinois with no resolution behind playoff expansion. Every meeting of conference commissioners that doesn’t conclude with an agreement for playoff expansion takes us a step closer to the 12-team playoff staying in place for at least the 2026 season.
‘My sense is the room’s comfortable with (staying at 12), if that’s where we go,’ CFP executive director Rich Clark told reporters after the latest meeting ended with no decision.
The deadline to alter the playoff’s size or structure for next season remains Dec. 1.
I wouldn’t mind if, come Dec. 2, there’s still no decision to expand the playoff. Because the longer this goes, the more I think 12 is the number — a number worth keeping in place for at least the 2026 season. And maybe beyond that.
Let’s get a peek at how the playoff operates this year, now that first-round byes are not exclusive to conference champions and instead will be awarded off straight seeding.
I’m loving the shape of college football’s regular season with a 12-team playoff as the backdrop. The field is big enough that everyone from Georgia Tech to UNLV to Memphis to Missouri can hunt for a playoff bid. But it’s not so big that an 8-4 Big Ten team could slither into the field — which is exactly what could happen if Petitti got his wish for an expanded playoff with play-in games.
The regular season didn’t lose significance. To the contrary, it became more exciting. A 12-team playoff strikes the perfect balance of bringing dozens of teams into playoff contention, while ensuring that Saturday to Saturday results remain consequential.
A team isn’t eliminated by a single loss, or even two, but the losses inflict damage. Think Alabama feels great about its playoff quest after a Week 1 beatdown at Florida State?
A 12-team playoff isn’t elitist, but it remains fairly exclusive. It’s tidy enough to fit into four rounds.
In the offseason, the Big 12 and ACC put their limited weight behind a 16-team playoff format that would add four additional at-large bids. That plan attracted some attention from the SEC. The Big Ten resisted, favoring instead its own proposal that featured a stacked deck of automatic bids.
I didn’t mind the Big 12/ACC idea for a 5+11 playoff, with four extra spots for at-large teams. But as another thrilling season unfolds, bound for a 12-team crescendo, I’m becoming less enamored with 16.
Give me a playoff big enough that Vanderbilt harbors hope of qualifying on the heels of a dream season, but restricted enough that Clemson’s chances are appropriately underwater after three losses through four games.
That’s this format. What say we keep it? Open the fridge, crack a can, and let’s toast a 12-ounce gulp to this delicious 12-team format.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
