Rece Davis says 'no way' the College Football Playoff has 16 teams in 2026

The size of the College Football Playoff is a conversation again after just the first year of the expansion to 12. Even so, Rece Davis doesn’t expect any more than two additions if it expands again in the next two years.

On ‘Another Dooley Noted Podcast’ last week, Davis answered yes, no way, or maybe regarding if there’d be a 16-team field in the CFP by 2026. He went with no way, despite it being what he thinks they should do, as he thinks it’ll expand only to 14 teams by then.

“No way,” said Davis. “Yeah, I think it’s going to be – I think it should be but I think it’s going to be 14 in ’26. That’s my, that’s my gut on it. I think there should be 16 and they should play a couple rounds at home. But I’ll say no way and say 14.”

This comes after reporting in mid-February that the College Football Playoff, due to momentum from the SEC and the Big Ten, was looking at expansion of the field to 14 or 16. That would also include changes to how teams from each represented conference earn seeding and byes within the bracket.

A need for a unanimous vote, though, could push back any outcome on this for some time as all sides debate.

It looks as though the playoff will be expanding again ahead of its new deal in two years time. Davis would just, as of now, believe it to be two more berths rather than four.

Progress made in meeting about seeding, future expansion of College Football Playoff

College football commissioners met with the College Football Playoff at the Grand Hyatt DFW Airport on Tuesday to discuss potential changes to 2025 seeding and further expansion into the future. The eight-hour meeting ended productively, participants said, but no decisions were made.

CFP Executive Director Rich Clark said discussions were productive but more historical data was necessary to inform any decisions made to the 2025 playoff format. Further expansion and change in 2026 was also discussed briefly. Commissioners will meet again in March.

“I would say the the majority of (the meeting) was looking back at 2024-25 season,” Clark said. “Really things like ticketing, TV viewership and looking at each segment of the playoff — the on-campus games — and understanding that dynamic and how we can make that better. Our bowl games at the quarters and the semis and what we can do to take those to the next level. And then the championship game.

“As good as all those things went, there’s always, always room for improvement. We had to go back and really take a hard look at all those, so we had some pretty in-depth discussions about it all. So that was the majority of the day.”

The room for improvement, of course, pertains to how seeding went this past year and whether it’s prudent to continue to provide the four highest-ranked conference champions with the top four seeds and a first-round bye in the tournament. In order to change that in 2025, the commissioners need to vote unanimously.

Should the CFP’s seeding just be straight seeding from the committee’s rankings? Or continue to automatically reward the four highest-ranked conference champions with the top four seeds and byes?

Before they make any changes to next year’s format, historical data is being compiled and will be analyzed so the commissioners can make a more informed decision. It’s reasonable to expect that data will be compiled in the next month so meetings in March and April can move closer toward a decision.

“Some of it is data, some of it is understanding how things happened last year and previous years so we can take a good look back and make good decisions for the future,” Clark said. “Teams are different and conferences look different. A lot of things look different. But there is still data that we can gain value from. They want to understand the implications of the decisions they’re going to make before they make them. We owe that to them.”

Clark said they’d like to have decisions made soon. The 2025 season is most pressing because it’s for next year, which is why it dominated the majority of the discussion Tuesday.