CFP expansion could make future scheduling tricky for WSU football

PULLMAN — The college football ecosystem changed in a seismic way on Monday. The College Football Playoff is expanding to 24 teams beginning next season, opening up more spots for more teams, but also opening doors to untold amounts of other consequences.

What does it all mean for Washington State? It’s a tricky question, but here are the top ramifications of the CFP’s expansion, which carves out only one guaranteed spot for the highest-ranked Group of 6 team.

Next season, WSU’s nonconference schedule includes a home game against rival Washington (the second-to-last Apple Cup currently under contract), a home matchup against Kansas and a road game against Arizona. Under the new rules set by the CFP’s expansion, one of which requires Power 4 teams to play 10 Power 4 games each season, those games might be in jeopardy for WSU, which is now regarded as a Group of 6 program — but there’s a catch for the Cougars.

For 2027, legacy Pac-12 members WSU and Oregon State will be treated as Power 4 programs, according to a report from CBS Sports. That means that the Cougars’ Power 4 games for next season are expected to be safe, and they won’t have to do any short-notice rescheduling. 

What is unclear is how WSU and OSU will be treated in 2028 and beyond. If they aren’t regarded as P4 programs, several of the Cougs’ future games could be in jeopardy, including a 2028 road game against Kansas, a 2029 home game against Kansas State, a 2031 home game against Virginia and a 2032 road game against Texas Tech.

Here are the current nonconference schedules of WSU’s Power 4 opponents in 2028 and beyond, which will need to be tweaked.

2028 Washington: vs. WSU, vs. Eastern Washington, vs. UNLV

2028 Kansas: at Hawai’i, vs. Lindenwood (FCS), vs. WSU

2029 Kansas State: at WSU, vs. Sam Houston

2031 Virginia: at WSU, vs. Richmond (FCS)

2032 Texas Tech: vs. WSU, vs. Fresno State, at UTEP

If those games don’t come to fruition for the Cougars — if Power 4 teams don’t schedule nonconference games against Group of 6 opponents — their opportunities to bolster their résumé become few and far between. G6 teams have a hard enough time making the playoff, appearing only four times since it began in 2014. Can they convince the playoff committee they deserve another spot if their only opponents are other G6 teams and FCS foes?

The CFP’s expansion also casts more doubt on the future of the Apple Cup, which is set to be played in 2027 in Pullman and 2028 in Seattle, but no games are under contract beyond that. In recent days, the Huskies and Cougars have expressed interesting in continuing the 118-year series — WSU president Betsy Cantwell indicated as much at a CougsFirst! event in Spokane over the weekend, while UW AD Pat Chun said there is “an intent to try and continue the game on both sides” in a radio interview — but the potential incentive for the series’ continuation is another factor.

The Power 4 Huskies will be required to play 10 P4 games, which means one P4 nonconference game. Would UW, which has placed a high priority on hosting seven home games per year, be interested in scheduling WSU as one of its two remaining games? Power-conference schools usually schedule one FCS game each season, which go a long way in funding FCS programs’ athletic departments. That leaves one open spot, and it’s unclear whether UW would want to schedule WSU to fill it.

Think about it this way from the Huskies’ perspective: If they beat the Cougars, they’ll have done what they’re expected to, which wouldn’t do much to move the needle for their playoff chances. If they lose to the Cougs, their résumé would include a loss to a G6 team, which could mean a big hit to their chances. The Apple Cup clearly means a lot to the state of Washington, but it’s also true that UW has a lot more to lose than to gain from the series continuing.

From WSU’s side: A win over UW would do wonders for the Cougars’ résumé. A loss wouldn’t do much at all.

Then again, the CFP’s expansion to 24 teams creates more wiggle room for losses — if the 24-team field existed this year, the CFP announced, it would include teams like 4-5 Iowa State and 3-6 Colorado — so it’s possible neither WSU nor UW would take a big hit from a loss in the Apple Cup.

Another tenet of the CFP’s expansion: The Power 4 leagues have each announced they are ending their conference championship games, a major change to preserve their teams’ chances of making the playoff field. But the Pac-12 has not announced it will follow suit, nor have other G6 conferences, which will have to weigh two factors. Do they keep the conference championship games, which figure to be lucrative broadcast events and help make their champions more clear-cut candidates for the field? Or do they cancel them, which could protect the highest-ranked team but remove a revenue stream?

“I saw the headline. I saw the headline maybe about conference championships getting nixed as well,” WSU coach Kirby Moore said Monday in his weekly news conference. “I don’t think it necessarily changes our path, right? So whether it’s 12, whether it’s 24, our path’s our path, and we gotta focus on that.”

Ostensibly, Group of 6 programs like WSU have a better chance of making the playoff, which is opening up 12 more spots. But in the CFP’s 12-year history, only four G5/G6 teams have made the field: Cincinnati in 2021, Boise State in 2025 (the first year of the 12-team format), plus Tulane and James Madison in 2026. Each has lost its first game in the playoff.

Could the Cougars make the playoff one day? It’s possible. But it’s also possible that teams of their ilk face a steeper climb into the 24-team field than the 12-team iteration.