Davis revealed his ideal college football playoff format, initially appearing on Athlon Sports.

The college football playoffs have undergone significant changes over the past offseason, expanding from four teams to 12 teams. The change allowed six teams to qualify for the playoffs for the first time in the history of the program.

However, other changes are coming soon. A noteworthy tweak is in the seed process: the top four conference teams will now win this privilege instead of getting the four highest conference titles of goodbye, but getting the goodbye.

In addition, the playoffs may be expanded further, from 12 teams to 16. The details of this potential expansion remain uncertain. A suggested model suggests that four automatic bids are provided to the SEC and Big 10 teams, two automatic bids are provided to the Big 12 and ACC teams, and a bid from a team of five conference groups. In addition, three general bids will be offered.

ESPN's Reception Davis discusses the concept in the podcast, "University Gameday Podcast," Revealing that he has different playoff modes.

"Five + 11, but every champion and Notre Dame in all five conferences will not be automatically bidding," Davis said. "They have to reach a threshold. Very simple threshold. They don't have to rank in the top 16 of the committee rankings, but all conference champions I would say, including the five, have to be ranked."

Davis said this approach would prevent the deserved champion from getting a bid for a national title. He believes that having five conference champions and 11 all-weather bids is an ideal model and requires that five champions must meet specific criteria. He suggested that these champions should rank in the top 25.

In addition, Davis aims to develop a formula that allocates greater weight to the subjective assessment of the College Football Playoff Committee, while also including objective criteria. This will include protocol strength that records strength and power ranking based on team performance and future prospects.

Davis believes that this balance approach is the best of both worlds. He mentioned that while the committee claims to use these rules, implementing them in a clear way will help fans understand the metrics they should focus on and the weight of each. Once this is clarified, it will help identify the general team.

With regard to the current 12 team formats due this year, it is not yet certain when a vote could be held on the potential expansion of the 16 teams.

Related: Joel Klatt is not sold in 16 teams’ college football playoffs

This story was first appeared on June 1, 2025 by Athlon Sports.