There will never be a fix that “solves” the College Football Playoff.
Just as with every championship-determining system before it, college football’s inherent imbalance means that, however you pick the teams that get to play for the national title, someone will always feel snubbed and lack the recourse to make things “right.”
That’s never stopped the sport’s power brokers from trying, especially when there’s more money to be made along the way.
The CFP’s current 12-team format is already way too many teams playing for a chance at a national title. However, even that can’t satisfy everyone, as Notre Dame, BYU, and Vanderbilt can attest.
The call for further expansion has been loud for a while now, and it seems as though it’s only a matter of time before it happens. Following the last CFP drama, highlighted by Notre Dame’s exclusion, ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit cast his vote for the next Band-Aid to be placed atop the sport’s gaping wound.
Kirk Herbstreit: “It’d be great if we had 16 teams. Maybe that’s the next answer to get this thing up to 16 teams.”
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) December 7, 2025
“It’d be great if we had 16 teams,” Herbstreit said, according to Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger. “Maybe that’s the next answer to get this thing up to 16 teams.”
The “maybe” in there sums up the futility of CFP expansion as a balm to soothe all the existing concerns. Maybe it’ll help. Probably not. But maybe? Who knows. But we might as well try it? Or not?
That’s not a knock on Herbstreit. It’s just where everyone’s at these days, from the college football experts to the fan sitting at home. No one really knows, in part because we all know that none of these moves will be “the right one.”
Of course, the CFP will expand to 16 teams, a four-loss Alabama or three-loss Notre Dame will get left out, and the calls for a 24-team tournament will grow too loud to ignore.
And on and on we’ll go until the sun engulfs us and frees us from our futile efforts to make everyone in college football happy.
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.