The internal document begins by offering a potential timeline desired by the Big Ten, which wants the format to grow to a 16-team playoff for 2027 and 2028. The document indicates a move to 24 for "no later than the 2029 season," which would then run through the end of the current CFP contract, which goes through 2031. From there, there would be a new television contract and further flexibility to change.
In the proposed 16-team format, there would be five automatic qualifiers and 11 at-large teams, an idea that has been widely discussed. The top two teams would get byes, and the opening games -- No. 16 vs. No. 13 and No. 14 vs. No. 15 -- would be played on the second weekend in December, likely slotting around the annual Armyvs. Navy game.
There would be six second-round games on campus and four quarterfinals at traditional bowl locations on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. That would be followed by semifinal games at bowl sites and the national title game, which would be played around mid-January.
The 24-team format would consist of the 23 best teams and one spot for the Group of 6. There would be no automatic qualifiers, which had been a point of emphasis for the Big Ten in CFP discussions last year. If the field grows to 24, sources have indicated that automatic qualifiers would matter less to the Big Ten.
(According to the document, the breakdown for this field if it had played out in 2025 would have been seven SEC teams, six Big Ten, five Big 12, three ACC, two Group of 6 and Notre Dame.)
The top eight teams would receive byes. There would be eight first-round games on campus and then an extra week of home games with eight second-round games played on campus. That would mean all the top teams would be rewarded with a playoff home game, which has been considered a flaw of the current system. No. 1
Indiana, for example, didn't play a home game in last season's CFP.
The "optimal window" to start the 24-team playoff would be the second weekend in December, which would have Friday and Saturday away from any NFL competition. It would address the long rest period that has emerged early in the 12-team playoff model; teams with byes and extended layoffs went 1-7 the first two years of the CFP.
The quarterfinals would fall on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day at bowl sites, and the semifinals would be the following week at bowl sites. That would be followed by a mid-January title game at a neutral site.
In this proposed 24-team model, the preference is that no regular-season rematches would be permitted in the first round, but games between league foes could be played if they didn't meet in the regular season.
This transition to a 24-team format would include the elimination of conference title games, and the incremental timeline to get to 24 teams in 2029 would give "appropriate remedies" for moving away from them.
The internal document gives a window into how the Big Ten views the conference title games, calling them "artificial" and saying that leagues that play them take on "way more risk" than those that don't and still advance to the CFP.
How the CFP would handle making up for the cost of losing the conference title games would be one of the biggest looming issues. The Power 4 championship games have media value of at least $200 million, and that figure represents only a television valuation. It doesn't account for the tens of millions the games generate with tickets, sponsorships and game-day sales.
The financial trick of a 16-game playoff if the sport were to eventually divorce itself from conference title games is that it would add four games, only two of which would be up for bid to bring in new money. (The current contract accounts for ESPN owning the added games up to 14 teams.)
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