Ohio State coach Ryan Day makes bold College Football Playoff statement

Expansion could be on the horizon for the College Football Playoff, and Ryan Day is lobbying for more guaranteed Big Ten representation. 

A 16-team playoff format is gaining traction for 2026 and beyond, and the Ohio State head coach believes his conference should have several automatic spots each year.

“I feel like we deserve at least four automatic qualifiers,” Day told ESPN this week. “We’re in the Big Ten, and we have 18 teams and some of the best programs in the country.”

The Buckeyes are coming off a national championship after playing through a 12-team field that featured three other Big Ten teams: Penn State, Indiana and Oregon. 

Day hopes that this will be an annual occurrence in a larger bracket. 

A 16-team model that would feature the top-five conference champions and 11 at-large bids gained support at the SEC spring meetings last week.

But, in the format Day supports, both the Big Ten and SEC would each have four auto qualifiers, with the ACC and Big 12 each getting two, and the top Group of Five champion also earning a guaranteed spot.

Three at-large spots would round out the field.

Day pointed to the fact that the Big Ten added the top programs from the Pac-12 in its recent expansion: USC, Washington, Oregon and UCLA. 

Washington and Oregon were the only two teams from the Pac-12 to have made the CFP during the four-team playoff era. 

“You would have had at least a team or two [in the CFP] from out there,” Day said of the original Pac-12. “So it only makes sense when you have 18 teams, especially the quality of teams that you would have [in] that many teams representing the Big Ten.”

For the 2025 season, the playoff will retain its 12-team format, with the top four teams in the final CFP rankings earning first-round byes. 

That marks a slight change from last season, when the four highest-ranked conference champions received byes.