How a 24-team College Football Playoff would impact Penn State

Whether you are on board with the decision or not, the College Football Playoff is appearing to be on the fast track to another expansion of the postseason format. Just a few short seasons after expanding from four teams to 12, the College Football Playoff is preparing to double in size to a 24-team format beginning as early as the 2027 college football season. A handshake agreement is already in place with broadcast partner ESPN, which makes it seem like a mere lock this plan is about to be set in motion.

There are still some details that would need to be ironed out, and the Big Ten and SEC will be the top powers that will have to give the stamp of approval on any final plans before officially being unveiled. But if there is more money to be gained by the two richest conferences, then you have to imagine there will be nothing standing in the way of an expanded field. And for a program like Penn State, that would seemingly be a good thing for years to come if the goal is simply to make the College Football Playoff and potentially host a first-round game.

It is first important to understand how a 24-team bracket will work. While there are some specific details that will need to be confirmed, the general feeling is the top eight teams in the nation will get a first-round bye regardless of conference championship status. Those top eight teams would then host games in the second round, with home games against first-round winners. The first round would seed teams 9-24 by ranking, ensuring the top five conference champions are included if needed. The No. 9 seed would host the No. 24 team, No. 10 would host No. 23, and so on. The quarterfinal round would then take place in the traditional New Years Six bowl games, as well as the semifinals and a national championship game would remain in a selected host city as it currently is setup in the 12-team format.

So where would that leave Penn State in the College Football Playoff era?

Penn State would receive a pair of first-round byes and a total of six home games in Beaver Stadium for early-round playoff matchups if the 24-team format was first introduced in 2014 instead of the original four-team format. Here is a look at how the 24-team format would impact Penn State in the playoff era if it was being used this whole time.

2016: No. 5 seed, first-round bye

As the No. 5 seed in the final College Football Playoff rankings at the end of the 2016 regualr season, Big Ten champion Penn State would get a first-round bye and host the winner of a first-round matchup between No. 12 Oklahoma State and No. 21 Tennessee. The winner of that game would then face the winner of a matchup between No. 4 Washington and No. 13 Louisville/No. 20 LSU.

2017: No. 9 seed, host No. 24 NC State

Penn State would get a first-round matchup in Beaver Stadium against NC State, which would just make the cut ahead of Boise State for the final playoff spot. The winner would then face No. 8 USC in Los Angeles in the second round.

2018: No. 12 seed, host No. 21 Fresno State

The 2018 Nittany Lions would again get a first-round game in Beaver Stadium. This time they would host No. 21 Fresno State out of the Mountain West Conference. The winner of that game would advance to the second round to play No. 5 Georgia in SEC country.

2019: No. 10 seed, host No. 23 Navy

Penn State would be the home team in a first-round matchup against Navy from the American Athletic Conference. The winner of this matchup would then go on to face No. 7 Baylor in Waco, Texas.

2020: Would not qualify

Penn State's 2020 season went off the rails at the start of the delayed regular season. The Nittany Lions did not finish the COVID-19 season ranked in the top 24 of the College Football Playoff rankings and declined any opportunity to participate in the postseason. It is unclear how circumstances may have changed in this expanded playoff structure.

2021: Would not qualify

Penn State finished the regular season outside of the College Football Playoff selection committee's top 25 rankings, thus eliminating the Nittany Lions from being eligible for a 24-team playoff bracket.

2022: No. 11 seed, host No. 22 Mississippi State

Penn State would be back in the College Football Playoff in 2022 after a couple of off-the-mark seasons. The Nitany Lions would host an SEC team, No. 22 Mississippi State, in Beaver Stadium for a first-round matchup, with the winner going on to face No. 6 Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee in the second round.

2023: No. 10 seed, host No. 23 Liberty

Penn State would get a first-round home game in Beaver Stadium once again in 2022 under the 24-team format. Penn State would host upstart Liberty, who went 13-0 in the 2023 season on their way to winning the Conference USA championship. The winner of this matchup would then line up to play at No. 7 Ohio State in the second round.

2024: No. 4 seed, first-round bye

Penn State would be in line for its second first-round bye in the 24-team model in the College Football Playoff era and would have its highest seed in the playoff era under this format. Penn State would take on the winner of a first-round matchup between No. 13 Miami and No. 20 Illinois, which may be a significant upgrade in difficulty compared to Penn State's actual 2024 playoff matchups with SMU and Boise State. If Penn State managed to win a home game against Miami or Illinois, then they would head to the quarterfinal round on a neutral field to play the winner of a second-round matchup between No. 5 Notre Dame and No. 12 Alabama or No. 21 Syracuse. Under this format, Penn State's postseason fate could still come down to a matchup with the Fighting Irish, as it did in the 2024 season.

2025: Would not qualify

Penn State's 2025 season went off the rails with a 3-game losing streak in the middle of the year that led to an in-season coaching change and extended to a six-game losing skid before getting back in the win column. But would the adoption of a 24-team playoff field have changed the in-season decision-making on the status of head coach James Franklin, and could Penn State have turned things around knowing that their postseason fate was not as out of reach as it ended up being in the 12-team format?

2026: Remains to be seen!

Times may be rough on the Nittany Lions at the time of this playoff expansion news is developing. But a 24-team format gives a team going through some mid-season struggles enough time to claw back into the bottom fringe of the playoff rankings if that team can pull itself together in time. Anybody can see this Penn State team does not deserve to be in any College Football Playoff format, but with an entire second half of the season to play, a 24-team format would benefit a team like this Nittany Lions squad by providing a branch of hope even at this point in the year.

Kevin McGuire is the lead writer for Nittany Lions Wire, part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow him on BlueSky, Threads or any of these other platforms.

Follow Nittany Lions Wire on X and Facebook.

This article originally appeared on Nittany Lions Wire: How a 24-team College Football Playoff would impact Penn State