Why the College Football Playoff field should expand to 16 and use the 5/11 model to select the teams

Why the College Football Playoff field should expand to 16 and use the 5/11 model to select the teams originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

If the College Football Playoff wants to capitalize on one of its most exhilarating chapters in history, then expanding to 16 teams is the next move. 

No. 1 Indiana completed the perfect 16-0 season with a 27-21 victory against No. 10 Miami on Monday – part of the ultimate Cinderella story under Curt Cignetti and Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza. On Sunday, the Power 4 commissioners met to discuss the CFP format for 2026 with the ESPN deadline looming Friday. Yet there was no resolution. 

"Still more work to do," Petitti said via ESPN.com. 

Still more arguing to do, is more like it. Petitti wants a 24-team format. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey wants 16 teams. In an interview with Sporting News before the CFP championship ACC commissioner Jim Phillips supported the 16-team model. 

"Here is where the line of demarcation is for me –  I just think when you have worthy teams being left out that could potentially win a national championship, then you probably don't have the right number," Phillips told SN. "That has been the case the last three years."

The number is 16.

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Why 24 is too many teams for the CFP

The Big Ten is on top of college football right now. Michigan (2023), Ohio State (2024) and Indiana (2025) have won the last three national championships. Yet according to ESPN.com, "the Big Ten won't agree to (a 16-team field) unless the SEC agrees to a 24-team format three years later."

This is a classic example of over-playing your hand.

Is there an appetite to double the playoff field? This model promises four automatic berths for each Power 4 conference, two CFP berths for the Group of Six and six at-large bids. Other than the proposal to eliminate conference championship games, this model is too much. Sorry, we don't want play-in games either. 

In this format, a four-loss team such as Iowa – which was ranked No. 24 in the final CFP rankings – would make the CFP. Iowa had close losses to Indiana and Oregon, and Cignetti did have the Hawkeyes at No. 11 in his final Coaches Poll ballot. It's still a four-loss team. 

WAY-TOO-EARLY TOP 25: Indiana starts at No. 1

Why 16 teams is the best choice for the CFP 

The 5/11 model – which calls for five automatic berths to the highest-ranked conference champions – is the most-agreeable model moving forward. That's not the best model, but it's the one we're going to land on. If that were the case this year, No. 11 Notre Dame, No. 12 BYU, No. 13 Texas and No. 14 Vanderbilt – all teams that were borderline CFP teams – would have made the field. This would have been the bracket:

What a 5/11 CFP model looked like in 2025-26

How awesome does that look? It's a far superior model to the 12-team CFP for a couple reasons. One, we could get the top-four teams on the field spooner. Teams with a first-round bye are 1-7 in the first two seasons of the CFP. Sure, No. 1 Indiana bucked that trend and won the CFP championship this season, but this eliminates that long layoff between games. 

For those counting, it features seven SEC teams and three Big Ten teams, which is partially why Petitti is trying to get that fourth automatic berth for the conference. That can fluctuate with any given year. Are you really going to halt progress based on getting No. 15 USC in the field? No. USC and No. 16 Utah are ranked higher than the two Group of 6 champions that make the field, but there are fewer fan-bases with a legitimate gripe to get in the CFP.

What are the drawbacks? Duke – which won the ACC with five losses – does not get in the CFP. That was an anomaly and can be fixed by using CFP rankings over an overly complex set of tiebreakers in super-sized conferences. 

If the College Football Playoff truly is going the way of March Madness, then this is the way. Doesn't this look like the East Region of the NCAA men's basketball tournament? This playoff would have been better than what we just watched:

TV ratings would improve in a 16-team CFP

Television ratings are subjective in some ways, but here is the trend. The College Football Playoff has yet to recapture the buzz from the first five years of the CFP. The first four-team CFP championship game between No. 4 Ohio State and No. 2 Oregon in the 2014-15 CFP drew 34.18 million viewers.

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TV ratings for CFP championship games

The average viewership for the CFP championship for the first five seasons from 2014-15 to 2018-19 was 27.87 million. Those games had an average margin of victory of 12.4 points per game.

The next five years from 2019-20 to 2023-24 saw a decrease in viewership to an average of 21.87 million viewers and an increase in blowouts. The average margin of victory in those games was 27.8 million.

How about the 12-team CFP? Last year's blue-blooded matchup between No. 8 Ohio State and No. 7 Notre Dame – which the Buckeyes won 34-23 – drew 22.12 million. That was a game between two of the sport's most popular brands.

It's all open to interpretation, but that is an objectively large decrease in viewership. Indiana might have been the greatest story ever told in college football history, one that is being compared to the "Miracle on Ice." Then, why didn't more people watch the game? A total of 34.2 million people watched the United States beat the Soviet Union that night on tape delay. They didn't have iPhones, and that was on a Friday night. 

The CFP has to be more compelling. A 16-team CFP would get us there. 

What are other logical changes for CFP format? 

Let's do another comparison. On April 4, 1983, No. 6 NC State – led by Jim Valvano – beat No. 1 Houston 54-52 in the NCAA men's basketball championship game. This was in a 52-team tournament field, and the tournament expanded to 64 teams two years later. 

Without getting into a debate whether NC State was a larger upset than Indiana, which it was, then college football should take a cue, use this momentum and let a few more teams in. By the way, 32.1 million people watched the Wolfpack win that game, and it was on a Monday night. Again, Indiana was an 8.5-point favorite. 

We have been preaching the same other tweaks for a few years now, but what is one more reminder? 

- Go to 16 teams. A 5/11 model or a straight seeing model that allows one G6 team in. Either one works. 

- Eliminate conference championship games. Conference championship games do not pair well with the CFP. If you want to keep them in the 5/11 model that's fine, but know they are devalued with each round of expansion. The SEC and Big Ten participants have made the CFP each of the last two years. Conference schedules are impossible to balance. We don't have to wait two weeks after these games to start the CFP. The FCS playoff model works just fine without conference title games. 

- Put the first two rounds on campus. This is a no-brainer that requires no debate. 

- Move the CFP calendar up. Miami and Indiana played Monday, but the hot topic in the morning was that the Buffalo Bills fired Sean McDermott after a dramatic 33-30 loss to Denver in the AFC divisional playoffs. The CFP should end no later than the second week of January. Next year, the CFP championship is on Jan. 25 in Las Vegas. This is when this lesson will be reinforced again. The CFP can say it's working with the NFL all it wants, but it's pretty clear the NFL does not care.