The College Football Playoff is seemingly always changing, and Tennessee football coach Josh Heupel is in favor of at least one more big change.

Since the moment the CFP expanded from four to 12 teams a few years ago, there has been nearly constant conversation about when, not if, the playoff will expand again — and by how much. If it were up to Heupel, whose team qualified for the first 12-team CFP in 2024 and then finished outside of the top 25 this past season, the playoff would double in size.

“The way college football is constantly changing, that probably makes the most sense,” Heupel said of a 24-team playoff, which he told On3's Chris Low he prefers.

The 24-team format has been bandied about and notably proposed by the Big Ten, which suggested completely eliminating conference championship games to make room for another week of on-campus playoff games. The format, to which the Big Ten wants to transition by 2029, would take the 23 highest-ranked teams and reserve a spot for a non-power-conference team.

Currently, in the CFP's 12-team format, the five highest-ranked conference champions are guaranteed a spot in the playoff, and the seven highest-ranked remaining teams complete the field. This has led to some interesting outcomes in the first two years of its existence.

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In 2024, when the four highest-ranked conference champions not only got a spot, but were given first-round byes, Boise State and Arizona State, despite being ranked Nos. 8 and 10 after winning the Mountain West and Big 12, respectively, joined Oregon and Georgia in the top four. Last season, with the automatic bye stipulation gone, the CFP featured Tulane and James Madison, respectively ranked 17th and 19th, because they became the fourth and fifth-highest-ranked conference champions after 7-5 Duke upset No. 17 Virginia in the ACC title game.

The CFP will remain at 12 teams for at least one more season, but it seems likely that the format will be changed in some fashion by the 2027 season. As part of the Big Ten's 24-team proposal, the CFP would expand to 16 teams for '27 and '28 before jumping to 24 teams starting in 2029.

Regardless of whether the CFP was welcoming 12, 16, or 24 teams in 2025, Heupel's Volunteers would not have been one of them. After finishing the 2024 season ranked seventh in the country, Tennessee suffered an embarrassingly lopsided defeat against eventual national champion Ohio State in the first round. Then, this past season, the Vols dropped games to Georgia, Alabama, and Oklahoma before a 45-24 loss to in-state rival No. 14 Vanderbilt in its regular-season finale, which dropped Tennessee out of the top 25. In its bowl game, UT lost 30-28 to Illinois.

Tennessee is set to open its season on Sept. 5 vs. FCS Furman. The following weekend, the Volunteers will travel down to Atlanta to take on Georgia Tech.