When it enters its second year, the new 12-team College Football Playoff will have an entirely new format and look.
During the 2024 college football playoff, the first with the 12-team format, the top four spots were reserved for the highest-ranked conference champions, and those teams received automatic byes.
According to a new agreement reached this week, the playoff bracket will now be filled with straight seeding, with five spots still reserved for conference champions.
“After evaluating the first year of the 12-team playoff, the CFP management committee felt it was in the best interest of the game to make this adjustment,” CFP Executive Director Rich Clark said. “This change will continue to allow guaranteed access to the playoff by rewarding teams for winning their conference championship, but it will also allow us to construct a postseason bracket that recognizes the best performance on the field during the entire regular season.”
According to Yahoo! Sports, “If this seeding system were in place for the 2024 college football season, Penn State would have been given a first-round bye as one of the top four teams in the final College Football Playoff rankings of the season following the Big Ten championship game. Despite losing to Oregon, Penn State ended the season ranked No. 4 by the selection committee following the conference championship games, but the Nittany Lions were forced to play in the first round as the top four seeds were reserved exclusively for the four highest-ranked conference champions.
“This new seeding format would also have given a first-round bye to the Texas Longhorns, who finished the regular season ranked No. 3 after losing in the SEC championship game to Georgia. Arizona State, the champions of the Big 12 last season, was ranked No. 12 by the committee but received the fourth first-round bye available as the fourth-highest-ranked conference champion. ACC champion Clemson was ranked No. 16 and secured a spot as the fifth-highest-ranked conference champion.”
Perhaps no team comes out a bigger winner under the new format than the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
Under last year’s rules, the Irish could have been seeded no higher than 5th and would never have been eligible for a first-round bye.
