College Football Playoff Expansion Could Turn Seasons Into an NFL Grind

Indiana finished last season 16-0. The Hoosiers beat Miami 27-21 in Miami Gardens on January 19 to win the program’s first national title, and they needed 16 games to do it, one shy of a full NFL regular season. No FBS team had won 16 in a season since Yale in 1894.

Six weeks earlier, Michigan hired the coach who plans to win that same way. Kyle Whittingham took over in Ann Arbor in December, and he did not leave anyone guessing about the plan. “What you can expect, physicality will be our calling card,” Whittingham said. “I believe in running the football and defending the run. If you can win the line of scrimmage and be physical up front, you’ve always got a chance.”

A season that runs five months

The math behind that 16-game total is simple. A team plays 12 regular-season games, wins its conference title game, then survives four rounds of playoff football. The Big Ten crowns its champion in Indianapolis on December 5 this season, and the national championship game follows on January 25, 2027. That is a five-month season for the last team standing.

College Football Playoff expansion stalled before it started. The CFP management committee kept the field at 12 teams for 2026 after Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey could not agree on what comes next. Petitti wants 24. Sankey wants 16. Neither wants fewer.

Why Michigan feels it first

Whittingham built his reputation on the roughest version of the sport. His Utah teams ranked second nationally in rushing in 2025, and he has said plainly that he expects Michigan to hit people the same way. That style wins in November. It also takes a toll on the same linemen and running backs every snap, and that wear shows up in January, when a team on a deep run is often just trying to keep bodies upright.

Michigan went 9-4 last season and lost the Citrus Bowl to Texas. Whittingham has spent the offseason making his roster harder, and he liked what he saw in the winter. “They’ve been asked to do some pretty difficult things this winter conditioning,” he said before spring practice. “They’ve answered the bell to everything we’ve asked.” The Wolverines sit in the middle of a loaded league, as our 2026 Big Ten preseason power rankings lay out.

The coaches want more games

The people closest to the players are pushing to make the season longer, not shorter. The American Football Coaches Association board voted in May to back a 24-team field, scrap conference championship games, and end the season by the second week of January. A 24-team bracket adds a full round and 12 more games.

The coaches acknowledged the problem themselves while voting to grow the tournament. “The American Football Coaches Association has identified the length of the college football season as a critical issue that needs to be addressed,” the group said in a statement.

Georgia’s Kirby Smart explained the pull that makes College Football Playoff expansion so hard to resist. “I’m a fan of 16 to 24 because of the currency and what we’re measured by as coaches,” Smart told Josh Pate. “I want to get my team in there for the opportunity. I want my fan base to be engaged.”

So the sport keeps adding weeks to a calendar coaches already call a problem, and the players absorb every extra hit without an NFL contract behind them. Whittingham knows exactly what he is asking of his. “That will be the trademark and the identity of this football team,” he said. “Physicality, toughness and grit.”