CFP Expands to 24: What It Means for ODU and the Sun Belt

For most of its existence, college football didn't have a champion so much as a collection of opinions.

The sport dates to 1869, but for its first several decades there was no single authority deciding who was best. Newspapers, statisticians and rating services all named their own champions.

That changed, sort of, in 1936, when the Associated Press began polling sportswriters. The coaches got their own poll in 1950. College football now had two influential national polls, though other selectors remained. But the core problem hadn't changed: the national champion was decided by a vote, not on the field. For years, both polls even released their final rankings before the bowl games were played. The AP didn't begin releasing its final poll after the bowl games until 1968; the coaches followed in 1974.

Meanwhile, the bowls themselves were locked into conference tie-ins. The Rose Bowl paired the Big Ten with the Pac-8 (later the Pac-10) no matter who else was ranked where, so the top two teams in the country often never saw each other. The result was a long list of split championships, including 1990, 1991 and 1997, when the two polls crowned different teams.

And the two major polls were never the only voices. Through the entire pre-BCS era, wire polls, rating services, mathematical formulas and historians all named champions of their own, which left many seasons with several teams holding a legitimate claim to the top spot. One of those selectors, the Williamson System, was run by Paul Williamson, a New Orleans geologist who started ranking teams in 1932. Yes, a geologist. The NCAA still lists his system as a major selector. Even today, the NCAA's record book lists the champions chosen by each recognized selector rather than naming one official winner. That's why title claims in college football never really expire. A school can look back through the selectors, find one that ranked it first, and add the trophy to its count, which is how some programs now claim national championships from seasons that ended more than 80 years ago. In 2026, for instance, Missouri became the fifth school to claim a piece of the disputed 1960 national title, joining Minnesota, Ole Miss, Iowa and Washington.

The sport's first attempts at a fix, the Bowl Coalition in 1992 and the Bowl Alliance in 1995, tried to steer the top teams into the same game but couldn't pry the Rose Bowl loose. In 1998, the Bowl Championship Series finally brought everyone under one roof. A formula blending human polls and computer rankings picked two teams to play for the title.

The BCS guaranteed a 1 vs. 2 matchup. It did not guarantee that anyone agreed on who 1 and 2 were. In 2003, the polls and the BCS disagreed and the title split again. In 2004, an undefeated Auburn team from the SEC watched the title game from home. And for schools outside the power conferences, the BCS was a glass ceiling. Utah went unbeaten twice. Boise State went unbeaten and beat Oklahoma in one of the most memorable Fiesta Bowls ever played. In 2009, two undefeated outsiders, Boise State and TCU, were paired against each other in the Fiesta Bowl rather than given a shot at the title. "BCS buster" became a compliment and a complaint at the same time.

The College Football Playoff arrived in 2014 with four teams and a 13-member selection committee. It ended the polls-and-computers era, but it didn't end the arguments. In 2017, an undefeated UCF team was left out and declared itself national champion anyway. In 2021, Cincinnati became the first Group of Five team to make the field. Two years later, undefeated ACC champion Florida State was passed over entirely.

In 2024, the field tripled to 12, with automatic bids for the top-ranked conference champions and a guaranteed spot for the best team outside the power conferences. For the first time, a school like James Madison could punch its own ticket by winning games, which the Dukes did in 2025.

Now, after just three seasons of that format, the sport is doubling again.

A Familiar Format for ODU

For Old Dominion, a bracket like this isn't a foreign idea. It's a familiar one.

Before moving up to the FBS, the Monarchs earned back-to-back trips to the FCS playoffs in 2011 and 2012, back when the field was 20 teams. The FCS expanded to 24 teams in 2013, with byes for the top eight seeds and early-round games on campus, almost exactly the format the CFP is now adopting. But there's one major difference. In the FCS, winning your conference punches your ticket. In the new CFP, the Sun Belt champion will compete with five other conference champions for a single guaranteed spot. Miss out on that spot, and you'd better have a resume strong enough to earn an at-large bid. And that's getting harder and harder for Group of Six (G6) programs, as fewer of their Power Four (P4) counterparts are willing to play road games on G6 campuses and they could have even fewer openings available to host G6 programs.

What's Changing

So what exactly is the CFP building?

In October 2026, the College Football Playoff reached what sources described to ESPN as a "handshake agreement" with the network to broadcast a 24-team playoff beginning in the 2027 season. ESPN's average additional payment is reportedly $345 million annually for the next five years, and the expanded format would run parallel to its existing CFP contract, through the 2031 postseason. The final contract still needs to be signed, but the Big Ten and SEC, which hold authority over format decisions, have both signed off.

That alignment took a while. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey had publicly pushed for a 16-team model, while Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti was among the biggest backers of 24. The SEC came around after Sankey circulated requirements that included all power conference teams playing at least 10 games against power conference opponents.

Who Gets In

Under the agreed framework, each power conference champion receives an automatic bid, as does the highest-ranked Group of Six champion. But the Big Ten, Big 12, ACC and SEC champions are going to make a 24-team field regardless, so in practice there are 23 at-large bids decided by the committee's rankings and one automatic spot for a champion from the Sun Belt, American, Conference USA, Mountain West, Pac-12 and MAC.

How the Bracket Works

Here's the format currently being discussed by conference leaders:

Format details reflect current discussions among conference leaders and could change before the contract is finalized.

Commissioners have also discussed weeknight playoff games in the first two rounds to spread out the inventory and avoid the NFL, which starts playing Saturdays in the third week of December. All told, the new format adds 12 games: eight new first-round games and four new second-round games.

What Disappears

To make room on the calendar, conference championship games are expected to go away. The first Saturday in December becomes an off-week, and the Army-Navy game and Heisman Trophy ceremony are most likely to move up to that date. Reporting indicates 2026 will likely be the final year of conference title games across both the Power Four and Group of Six conferences, which would include the Sun Belt Championship Game.

What Else Is on the Table

Commissioners have reportedly agreed that power league programs must play 10 games against power conference teams to be CFP eligible, which in practice means one non-conference power opponent per season. And the selection process itself is under review. The CFP is evaluating the committee's makeup and size, and whether its rankings should expand beyond 25, possibly to a top 30 or 35, now that the field is 24 teams.

What It Means for ODU and the Sun Belt

For the Sun Belt, the new playoff is a bigger room with a smaller window.

The field doubles, but the league's guaranteed path does not. Six conferences will still chase one automatic bid, and under the new format that spot reportedly goes to the highest-ranked Group of Six champion. That raises a question the Sun Belt hasn't answered yet: if conference title games disappear after the 2026 season, how does a two-division league crown the champion that bid now depends on?

In 2025, Tulane and James Madison both made the 12-team field as conference champions, with the committee taking them over an 8-5 Duke team that won the ACC. That path won't exist anymore. Power conference champions now get in no matter where they're ranked, so a second Group of Six team will have to earn an at-large spot through the committee's rankings, and the new scheduling rules will make those rankings even harder to climb.

The money won't change much either. According to Yahoo Sports, after accounting for roughly $200 million in lost conference championship revenue, the conferences are left to split about $150 million, with most of it going to Big Ten and SEC schools and the rest divided among independents and Group of Six programs. Bowl games, long the realistic postseason goal for most Sun Belt teams, face an uncertain future; most of the non-power bowls that feature G6 teams are owned by ESPN, so their fate is up to the network. And the new requirement that power programs play 10 games against power opponents could reshape the guarantee games that help fund G6 athletic departments.

That same rule will also make it nearly impossible for G6 programs to build a resume worthy of an at-large berth. With nine conference games and one required power opponent filling most of a P4 schedule, every G6 team in the country will be competing for the few non-conference openings that are left.

There's a pattern worth noticing. In 2024, Boise State earned the No. 3 seed and a first-round bye as a conference champion. The next year, the CFP moved to straight seeding, and byes went only to the four highest-ranked teams. In 2025, two Group of Six teams, James Madison and Tulane, made the field. Now the format is changing again, in a way that makes a second G6 bid far less likely. If the lone G6 champion is the only non-power team in the bracket, the other 23 spots go to a pool of 68 schools, the Power Four plus Notre Dame. That's roughly one in three. For everyone else, an at-large bid looks like a long shot at best.

A Playoff of Their Own?

Not everyone in the Sun Belt sees the new format as enough. In an Oct. 16, 2026, story by The Athletic, one Sun Belt head coach, speaking anonymously, said he was "good with" expansion but argued the Group of Six needs a bracket of its own: "We need a G6 playoff. Let us compete for something." He even sketched out a schedule, with G6 playoff games on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, leaving Fridays and Saturdays to the Power Four, and suggested television partners would pick it up.

There's some irony in that last part. Commissioners are already discussing weeknight games for the CFP's own first and second rounds, to spread out the inventory and avoid the NFL.

He isn't the only one who feels that way, and not everyone is saying it anonymously. Liberty head coach Jamey Chadwell, who led Coastal Carolina in the Sun Belt before taking the role with the Flames, said on Oct. 19, 2026, that he has supported a separate Group of Six playoff for a while, pointing to the growing financial divide.

"The way the money is at P4, the gap gets wider and wider every year," Chadwell said, according to A Sea of Red. "To know you still have a chance, if you win your league, to go to a playoff I think is pretty cool."

When that idea was put to Old Dominion head coach Ricky Rahne that same day, he wasn't buying it.

"I think that the 24-team playoff is the next step," Rahne said. "My own personal opinion is I wish we would've gone to 16. But I think that it wasn't hard to see that 24 was gonna come down the pike."

He noted that the idea was widely mocked when it first surfaced, and that the criticism faded steadily until expansion felt inevitable. As for a G6-only bracket, Rahne didn't mince words.

Rahne sees the single bid as something to earn, not something to replace.

"We get an opportunity to win something and earn our way into the playoff, and eventually that team is gonna win a couple games and do some things," he said. "And then it's gonna be a pretty special thing for all of college football when that happens."

That puts him in step with his commissioner. Sun Belt commissioner Keith Gill has said the league could support the largest possible expansion because it may create more opportunities for its teams, and he has made clear he wants little to do with any playoff format outside the CFP.

For Rahne, the stakes of a Sun Belt season don't change with the size of the bracket.

"That's what we're playing for," he said. "You're playing for conference championships. And honestly, you're playing to win games. Every single week I'm playing for something."

Old Dominion knows what an FCS-style bracket looks like. It played in one. Chadwell's ideal playoff sounds a lot like that one: win your league, and you're in. The CFP's version doesn't work that way. The Monarchs' ticket won't come from winning the Sun Belt alone. It will come from winning convincingly all season long, enough to rank above five other conference champions.