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ASU football fans welcome team home after trip to Peach Bowl
The Arizona State football team arrived in Tempe late on Jan. 1, 2025, after the Sun Devils’ loss to Texas in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.
If the rules now in effect had existed last season, Big 12 champion Arizona State would not have gotten a first-round bye in the College Football Playoff.
A change in the 12-team seeding format has been approved by the CFP’s management committee, which is comprised of 10 FBS commissioners along with Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua. In the fall, the playoff will transition to a straight seeding model, which rewards the selection committee’s top four teams with first-round byes.
Last season, the four highest-ranked conference champions earned the top four seeds, regardless of where they were ranked. ASU was awarded the fourth seed and got a first-round bye, going to the Peach Bowl where it faced SEC champion Texas and lost in a double-overtime thriller.
Mountain West champion Boise State also got a first-round bye and was the No. 3 seed, one spot ahead of ASU. Under the new format, neither would have had a bye.
Had a straight seeding model been utilized the past season, the top four seeds would have been Oregon, Georgia, Texas, and Penn State — two SEC teams and two Big Ten schools taking the four byes.
That change also proves beneficial for teams like Notre Dame, which are independents. Notre Dame was not eligible for a first-round bye last season because it was not a conference champion. It went 11-1, winning 10 straight games after being upset by Northern Illinois in the second game of the season.
It could be argued that Notre Dame deserved a bye because it took a 10-game winning streak into the postseason. It beat Indiana 27-17 in a first-round game, defeated Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, and Penn State in the…
Source link : https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/college/2025/05/22/new-college-football-playoff-format-cfp-changes/83797471007/
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Publish date : 2025-05-22 20:48:00
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