There is strong support for a 16-team College Football Playoff format to begin as soon as 2026 if Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey can reach a specific compromise, multiple sources with knowledge of the discussions have told ESPN in the days leading up to one of the most significant meetings for the sport’s postseason.

There’s still a stalemate, though, between the two powerbrokers, meaning that even with a majority in favor of the change, the playoff could remain at 12 next season.

In November, the deadline for completing the format and related structural decisions moved from Dec. 1 to Jan. 23, 2026. CFP leaders — including all 10 FBS commissioners, Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua, and the 11 presidents and chancellors who comprise the organization’s board of managers — will meet Jan. 18 in Miami, the day before the national championship game, for their annual review of the season.

They are expected to discuss two models: a 16-team field that includes five conference champions and 11 at-large teams, and another format with 24 teams. Petitti and Sankey have the bulk of control over the playoff’s format in 2026 and beyond, an agreement the other commissioners and Bevacqua signed off on in 2024 during the last contract negotiations with ESPN. If the Big Ten and SEC leaders can’t come to an agreement by the deadline, the playoff will remain at 12 teams. The field will now guarantee the Power 4 conference champions spots, along with the highest-ranked conference champion from the Group of 6, which now includes the revamped Pac-12.

The Power 4 commissioners, including the ACC’s Jim Phillips and the Big 12’s Brett Yormark, have had multiple separate discussions about it in the weeks and months leading up to the national title game. On Monday, they will hold a brief videoconference with select members of their staffs to prepare for the larger board meeting in Miami.

Here’s what the who’s who of college football is saying behind closed doors about the future format, the selection committee, conference title games and the bowl games.

Future format

Sankey’s support of a 16-team field is extremely significant because of the weight he carries in the room, but it won’t happen if Petitti isn’t on board. Sources say the Big Ten wants to use this as leverage to eventually lock in a field with at least 24 teams, with or without automatic qualifiers. In exchange for support of a 16-team tournament now, sources said the Big Ten is looking for a commitment to move to 24 teams after two or three seasons. Though some in the room might be willing to consider a 24-team field halfway through the new six-year deal, there is a strong reluctance to commit to it now — and that could keep the stalemate ongoing. A 24-team playoff without automatic qualifiers, though, might be appealing enough for Sankey to consider.

Some CFP leaders have become more open to the idea of a 24-team field — it’s not something people vehemently oppose — but there is a sense among many of them that it’s too significant of a leap to make at this point. The Big Ten’s perspective, according to sources, is that three years with 16 teams would give conference commissioners time to eliminate their conference championship games and restructure the postseason to accommodate play-in games or whatever path to the playoff they might favor.

There are some decision-makers, particularly in the SEC, who would support a field that included the 16 best teams without guarantees to conference champions, but also a realization that excluding the Group of 5 is a highly unlikely scenario.

“I don’t think that’s going to fly,” one source said.

There also isn’t any serious momentum to require conference champions to be ranked within a certain range to qualify for the playoff — a public talking point after No. 25 JMU entered the field. That qualifier hasn’t gained support from decision-makers.

Sources said the 24-team model has been presented to the Power 4 commissioners, but not the larger group. There are still significant questions about how it would work and when, in addition to learning more specifically how the revenue would replace the championship games. There are also some concerns about weakening the importance of the regular season and adding even more lopsided postseason matchups. There is also a unified desire to preserve the Army-Navy window, while also realizing games would need to be played around it.

Under the new governance structure, any changes to the future format are now in the hands of the commissioners and Bevacqua. They no longer need the CFP’s board of managers — which is composed of 11 presidents and chancellors — to give final approval.

One of the issues at the heart of this year’s Selection Day was the ACC’s tiebreaker, which excluded Miami from the conference championship game while pitting Virginia and five-loss Duke against each other. Because the five-loss Blue Devils won the league, the ACC champ was excluded from the CFP, while its best team, Miami, needed a last-minute flip to be included. Multiple sources have indicated that all Power 4 conferences will work this offseason to have a similar tiebreaker that would ultimately resort to the CFP rankings if needed — something the Mountain West Conference did this past season. Those discussions are expected to heighten at the respective winter meetings.

Selection committee

Part of the Big Ten’s issue with the CFP system is a belief that the selection committee has an impossible job that will only get more difficult as the SEC and ACC transition to nine-game conference schedules this year. With an increase in two- and three-loss teams expected, the committee will have a tougher task evaluating those records against the opponents they’ve played. The committee’s enhanced strength of schedule metric and new record strength metric didn’t provide any glaring differences fans would have noticed this past season in each weekly ranking.

No major changes are expected to the committee’s protocol, but some sources — inside and outside of the room — have questioned whether sitting athletic directors should remain a part of the group, given how much pressure there is on schools and conferences to make the playoff. Is it possible for those individuals to act independently and not as representatives of their respective conferences? Some within the industry have suggested the committee chair be independent — not a sitting athletic director, as has been the norm throughout the duration of the CFP. There isn’t any momentum for athletic directors to cycle off the committee, and there is still support for the position from CFP leaders who believe they lend credence to the system. Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek is expected to serve one more season as the committee’s chair, but the commissioners and Bevacqua still have to approve that recommendation.

The reality is that it has gotten much more difficult to find committee members since the inaugural season of the playoff.

Bowls

The indecision surrounding the CFP’s future format is having a trickle-down effect on the bowl system. The larger the playoff field, the fewer name-brand bowl-eligible teams will be available for the non-CFP bowls. There will be more conversations this offseason about how many bowls there should be.

Currently, there are 41 FBS bowl games, including the six CFP bowls. That leaves 70 teams that played in non-CFP bowls this season, and only three of them were below the .500 bowl-eligibility mark at 5-7.

Bowl Season executive director Nick Carparelli said he’s still confident, though, that the playoff field won’t impact the health of the non-CFP bowls. Carparelli said that over the past five seasons, an average of 81 teams played in FBS bowls with a 6-6 record or better.

“I think a lot of people are waiting to hear the final decision on the next format of the CFP, and as a result, much of college football is in a little bit of a holding pattern,” Carparelli said. “The bowl organizations have been in constant discussion with their conference partners about potential partnerships for the future, but nothing has been finalized until we know what the CFP is going to look like.

“I think most people thought the bowl system was going to be diminished when we went from four teams to 12 teams two years ago,” Carparelli said, “but over that two-year period, the overall non-CFP television viewership has been up 25%, so I think that proves that there’s always going to be an appetite for college football in the month of December. And regardless of the CFP format, the rest of the bowl system is going to provide great college football programming in between each round of the playoff to keep college football fans excited.”

Though many fans, coaches and players have enjoyed the atmosphere and advantages of first-round home games in the 12-team CFP, multiple commissioners have said publicly and privately that it’s important to continue the partnership with the six major bowls — Cotton, Fiesta, Peach, Rose, Sugar and Orange. If the playoff expands beyond 12 teams, though, more games are expected to be played on campus in addition to the major bowls.