College Football Playoff to remain at four teams after expansion talks fail

Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett celebrates with the College Football Playoff national championship trophy.
Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett celebrates with the Faculty Soccer Playoff nationwide championship trophy after the Bulldogs’ win over Alabama in January.
(Darron Cummings / Related Press)

The Faculty Soccer Playoff is about to stay a four-team format by the 2025 season after the directors who handle the postseason didn't agree on a plan to broaden earlier than the present contracts run out.

The CFP administration committee, composed of 10 convention commissioners and Notre Dame’s athletic director, met by video convention earlier this week, govt director Invoice Hancock mentioned Friday in a press release.

Unable to interrupt an deadlock, the commissioners determined to desert efforts to implement a brand new 12-team format for the 2024 season and really helpful staying with the present mannequin to the presidents who oversee the playoff.

The CFP managers accepted the advice and directed the commissioners to proceed discussions on a brand new format to enter impact for the 2026 season.

“Despite the fact that the end result didn't result in a advice for an early enlargement earlier than the top of the present 12-year contract, the discussions have been useful and informative,” Hancock mentioned. “I'm positive they may function a helpful information for the Board of Managers and for the Administration Committee as we decide what the playoff will seem like starting within the 2026-2027 season.”

The choice to shelve early enlargement comes as no shock. The commissioners left their final in-person conferences in early January gridlocked and unable to supply the unanimous consensus wanted to maneuver ahead with a 12-team proposal that they had been haggling over since June.

The presidents didn't absolutely shut the door on early enlargement after that assembly, however hope for an settlement was clearly fading.

A number of days after the conferences in Indianapolis, Atlantic Coast Convention commissioner Jim Phillips took the strongest public stance but towards early enlargement, saying a brand new CFP format shouldn't be a precedence with a lot uncertainty all through faculty sports activities.

On Friday, the commissioners lastly signaled they've given up on on making an attempt to implement enlargement for the ultimate two years of the CFP’s 12-year take care of ESPN — a failure that can price the conferences an estimated $450 million in extra income.

Now they may focus their consideration on constructing a brand new mannequin for past the 2026 season, when there aren't any agreements in place.

The street to enlargement seemed to be a lot smoother eight months in the past, when the CFP unveiled the 12-team plan. Even with particulars nonetheless be labored out, there was optimism that a new format might be applied by the 2024 season.

A couple of month later, it was revealed the Southeastern Convention was in talks with Texas and Oklahoma to depart the Large 12 and be part of the powerhouse league that has produced 12 of the final 17 nationwide champions.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey had been a part of the four-person subcommittee that labored on the 12-team proposal for greater than two years. The plan referred to as for the sphere to be composed of the six highest ranked convention champions within the Soccer Bowl Subdivision and 6 at-large groups decided by choice committee rankings.

Comparatively new commissioners within the Large Ten, Pac-12 and ACC, already leery of a course of that began earlier than they had been concerned with the CFP, turned much more disillusioned after the SEC’s enlargement plan turned public.

Since then the method has stalled, regardless of greater than half a dozen in-person conferences of the commissioners. All agree the playoff ought to broaden, however they disagree on how and when.

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