As the College Football Playoff edges toward a 24-team bracket, Oregon State head coach JaMarcus Shephard used his game-week press conference to raise the question he believes the sport's decision-makers still owe everyone an answer on: who actually gets in?
The comments came on the heels of a major win for the Beavers off the field: star freshman receiver Jesse Legree announced he's sticking with Oregon State for next season. Legree, an undersized three-star from Baltimore whom Shephard first spotted while recruiting for Alabama, has blossomed into one of the top freshmen in the country. Keeping a player like that in Corvallis, rather than losing him to a bigger-budget program, is exactly the kind of fight Shephard's playoff argument is about.
Shephard, in his first season leading the Beavers, isn't against a bigger field. And he didn't speak in generalities. Shephard called out the SEC and the Big Ten by name, questioning whether expansion would genuinely open the door for everyone else or simply hand more seats to the two leagues already sitting at the head of the table.
"I really just worry about access," Shephard said.
A March Madness blueprint
Shephard pointed to the men's NCAA basketball tournament as the model worth studying. In that event, winning your conference championship earns you a bid, no matter which league you play in. Football, he noted, has not always offered that kind of path to everyone.
He made clear he wants a 24-team playoff to amount to more than the "rich getting richer," and said he hopes the NCAA and the CFP show they care about every student-athlete in the sport, not just the ones in the SEC and the Big Ten.
What's on the table
ESPN reported on Oct. 15 that the CFP is nearing a deal to grow from 12 to 24 teams starting in 2027, pending final approvals. The format under discussion would include 19 at-large bids, the four Power 4 conference champions and the highest-ranked team from outside those leagues.
Under that plan, seeds 1 through 8 would earn a bye followed by a home game, while seeds 9 through 16 would host first-round games. An earlier Big Ten proposal went further, floating a "23+1" model with no automatic qualifiers at all, the 23 best teams plus one guaranteed spot for the Group of 6. The current 12-team format stays in place for this season.
Those details matter a great deal in Corvallis. Oregon State now plays in the rebuilt Pac-12 alongside programs like Boise State and Colorado State, a league outside the Power 4. Under the structure ESPN described, its champion would be competing with every other non-power conference for a single guaranteed bid, which is exactly the kind of bottleneck Shephard is warning about.
The Beavers are making their own case
Shephard's Oregon State is 5-2 overall and 3-0 in Pac-12 play, and it's receiving votes in the AP poll coming out of its bye week. Shephard said it has been fun to see the conference get real national attention this fall as it builds something new.
Next up is a road trip to Fresno State (4-3) on Saturday, Oct. 31, at 8 p.m. PT on USA Network. The Beavers are 6.5-point favorites, the sixth straight game in which they've been favored.