Colorado's Deion Sanders Explains Why He Favors College Football Playoff Expansion in New Video

Colorado football coach Deion Sanders is throwing his support behind the Big 12's push for the College Football Playoff to expand to 24 teams.

"I would love 24. That would be tremendous," Sanders said around the 2:50 mark of a Tuesday interview with Front Office Sports' Baker Machado. "If you would have had 24 teams a year ago, a multitude of teams would have been participating in the playoffs, which would have been perfect for the Big 12.

"That's what we're standing on. I would love that. I don't know if we're going to attain that, but I would love that number."

Sanders was one of the 16 coaches who unanimously voted to support expansion to a 24-team bracket at Big 12 spring meetings in May, per Stephen Hawkins of the Associated Press.

The CFP bracket initially expanded to 12 teams ahead of the 2024 season, during which Sanders led a team starring Shedeur Sanders (who is now with the Cleveland Browns) and Travis Hunter (who is now with the Jacksonville Jaguars) to a 9-3 record.

The Buffaloes finished that season ranked No. 23 in the final CFP standings. That made Colorado one of three Big 12 teams alongside BYU (No. 17) and Iowa State (No. 18) to make the top 24 but fall short of the 12-team bracket.

Last season BYU was again left out of the playoff despite finishing No. 12 in the final rankings.

The Big Ten and ACC in support of the 24-team format, but have been unable to move forward with the new format in the face of opposition from the SEC.

Expanding the bracket to 24 teams would take away significance from conference championship games, which SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said last month his league is "pretty committed" to.

Georgia's Kirby Smart also proposed last month that the SEC could run a separate postseason should the league not find consensus with the rest of the NCAA.

The 2026 CFP bracket will once more feature 12 teams. The deadline to agree to any changes ahead of the 2027 postseason is Dec. 1.