College Football Playoff Expansion 2024: Major CFP Changes Arrive

The 2024 college football season will be vastly different than any other that came before it. College football conference realignment has destroyed the Pac-12 and created two super conferences – the Big Ten and SEC – that will likely control a majority of the sport going forward.

Today, though, I’m not here to talk about realignment. The bigger news for 2024 is the long-awaited implementation of a 12-team playoff, finally making good on years of hope for college football playoff expansion. 

A bigger playoff system will significantly reshape the futures portion of the college football odds market, too. 

No system is perfect, but there’s a lot of good in this new model. Since 2014, fans have spent most of their college football playoff history exhausted by arguments about conference vs. conference and deserving vs. best. 

The new postseason product will inevitably create new friction points, but it will ultimately leave a lot of fans happier.

College Football Playoff Expansion: 2024 Playoff Rules

The new expanded College Football Playoff will include 12 teams. The four highest-ranked teams will be given byes, while the other eight will be matched and play first-round games on host campuses. 

Following conference championship week, the five highest-ranked conference champions will be awarded automatic playoff bids, guaranteeing at least one G5 team will be included in the postseason. The other eight teams will be chosen and ranked by the CFP committee.

Conference champions who receive auto bids are not automatically given a bye. In fact, quite a few conference champions will likely not rank in the top four.

Unlike the old edition of the CFP, the new 12-team College Football Playoff schedule will begin shortly after the end of the regular season. Once the conference championship games have been played, first-round teams will have two weeks to prepare for their first playoff game.

Following the first round, the CFP will continue like a normal eight-team bracket, with the quarterfinal games being played in the typical New Year’s time slots. 

The championship game will now be played later in January to account for the expanded format.

College Football Playoff Expansion Directly Affects Betting Markets

I spend most of my professional time studying online sports betting, so I’ve been thinking quite a lot this year about how the expanded playoff will affect the college football betting markets. Here are some of my best guesses.

In the outright college football national championship odds market, I don’t see much changing. College football has a whopping 22 starters, and other key contributors make high-leverage plays on third down or special teams. This is a sport where incredible depth of talent is required to win the last game of the season, which is why schools with elite recruiting and large pools of NFL Draft prospects are consistent winners. 

Adding more games to the postseason won’t change those core mechanics. If anything, additional games may sharpen the advantage that top recruiting programs have. 

So instead of the championship odds market, I think the right place to attack (for now) is the College Football Playoff odds market. 

Historically, this is a yes/no market where only four teams cash. But now that the market has expanded to 12, there’s a lot more room to run with consistent mid-table teams or even relative long shots outside of the preseason Top 25. 

Bettors interested in college football futures odds should look specifically at the CFP odds. I strongly suspect that the market on these numbers is pretty soft since the online sportsbook has no comp for the expanded market. Personally, I’m loading up with several tickets.