College Football Playoff Expands to Include 12 Teams

The College Football Playoff’s executive board on Friday approved an expansion to 12 teams, bringing to an end a more-than-three-year endeavor and delivering the most significant change to the postseason in college football history.

In a meeting that was cloaked in secrecy before a report from Sports Illustrated on Wednesday, the 11-member CFP Board of Managers, composed of presidents from each of the 10 FBS conferences and Notre Dame, voted unanimously to approve the 12-team format and implement it no later than 2026, sources tell SI. The decision, wholly unexpected just a week ago, caps a yearlong stalemate over playoff expansion from the Management Committee, a corresponding CFP governing group of conference commissioners and Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick, which failed to agree on an expansion format.