What to know about college football changes in 2027
College football is one step closer to a postseason that will resemble the come-one-come-all nature of the pros.
And yet, the 24-team playoff for major college football arriving next season will not completely get rid of some things that make the sport unique and, often, frustrating.
While four of the 24 spots in next year’s playoffs will go to teams that win their conferences, the rest will be entered into the bracket based on the opinions of a selection committee. It’s not a far cry from the days of sports writers and coaches weighing in with weekly polls to determine who was best in the nation.
A few of the key points about the 24-team playoff:
How will it work?
Much like this year’s 12-team playoff, champions of the four biggest conferences – the Power Four (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC) – will receive automatic spots. The highest-ranked team from the next tier of conferences – the Group of Six – will also be guaranteed a spot.
The last 19 teams will get in based on their ranking by a selection committee that will gather weekly to produce a list of its top 25 – or maybe top 30 – teams in the country.
Where will the games be played?
The top eight teams will receive first-round byes and will host games in the second week of the playoff, starting next year. Teams 9-24 will play opening-round games on the second weekend in December at the home stadiums of the better-ranked teams.
For the quarterfinals and semifinals, games will be at places like the Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl. The final will take place in late January – in 2028, it will be on Jan. 24 in New Orleans.
What about Army-Navy
The Army-Navy game, one of the most storied rivalries in college football, will be played one week earlier in the season starting next year to avoid conflicts with the expanded College Football Playoff.
The 128th edition of Army-Navy is now set to take place in Philadelphia on Saturday, Dec. 4, 2027, instead of Dec. 11.
Army-Navy has been a tradition on the second Saturday of December since 2009. Before that, it was on the first Saturday of the month. The rivalry dates to 1890.
And conference title games?
It was a groundbreaking idea that a large swath of football fans, coaches and athletic directors didn’t really like. The biggest losers, they argued, would be the very programs that were pushing for it to go forward – the teams in the Southeastern Conference.
More than 35 years ago – a generation before the SEC backed down and said yes to a once-unthinkable 24-team playoff – the same league invented the groundbreaking, divisive and, some said, self-defeating idea of splitting into divisions and holding a league title game.
Those title games – which eventually caught on with the other conferences and generated billions in TV money over three decades of high-stakes, highly viewed December showdowns – are the single largest piece of collateral damage in the wake of the latest expansion of the College Football Playoff.
They are also what might now be labeled as a relic, an iconoclastic and quirky puzzle piece that made the college game something much different from the pro game it emulates a bit more every year.
With 24 playoff teams, there is no more room on the calendar for those title games.