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College Football Playoff administrators approved a proposal for a straight-seeding model for the 2025 postseason, confirms Brandon Marcello of CBS Sports. This represents a major change in Year 2 of the expanded playoff. Happy trails to automatic first-round byes for the four highest-rated conference champions and welcome to a less complex power-ranking of the selection committee’s top 12 teams.
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Under the new seeding process, the top-four teams in the selection committee’s final rankings get a first-round pass to the quarterfinals. Last season, the four highest-ranked conference champions earned that distinction regardless of where those teams were slotted by the selection committee.
Eliminating the conference champion auto-bye scenarios was a major sticking point this offseason after it resulted in an unbalanced bracket last December. No individual metric suggested Mountain West champion Boise State had “earned” the No. 3 seed last season as a more deserving team than 11-win Texas or Penn State with more competitive schedules, but the Broncos benefited from the highest-ranked conference champion rule.
The top four seeds who received first-round byes last season — Oregon, Georgia, Boise State and Arizona State — all lost their opening games in the quarterfinals against opponents coming off wins the previous week.
How the 2024 CFP would’ve looked with straight seeding
1. Oregon Ducks (13-0) *Big Ten champion
No. 1 in final CFP Rankings, drew 1-seed
2. Georgia Bulldogs (11-2) *SEC champion
No. 2 in CFP Rankings, drew…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/college-football-playoff-straight-seeding-model-adopted-for-2025-what-it-means-for-conference-champions/
Author : Brad Crawford
Publish date : 2025-05-22 18:42:00
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