The College Football Playoff has approved immediate changes to its format for the 12-team model ahead of the 2025 season, and in doing so created a better tournament for the fall while also setting a standard for the ongoing negotiations around 2026 and beyond.
Instead of a format where the top four seeds of a 12-team playoff were reserved for conference champions, the bracket will now mostly reflect the rankings from the College Football Playoff selection committee. The five highest-ranked conference champions still get an automatic bid into the playoff, but those coveted first-round byes awarded to the top four seeds will now go to the top four teams in the country.
Last year, those spots were awarded to Boise State and Arizona State, who while being the third and fourth highest-ranked conference champions were No. 9 and No. 12 in the final rankings, respectively. Their promotion to No. 3 and No. 4 in the bracket re-sorted the entire field and ultimately created an imbalance that hurt the competitiveness of the entire format. It’s fair to argue that one season of results is a small sample size for reaction, but last year’s 12-team tournament produced an extremely chalky set of final results, even if there were some thrilling games along the way.
Betting favorites were 10-1 in the first year of the 12-team CFP, and the only “upset” was Notre Dame beating Penn State as a 1.5-point favorite on a last-minute field goal in the Orange Bowl semifinal. By the time we got to that semifinal round, the teams involved did in fact represent the top tier of the sport (Nos. 1, 3, 4 and 6 in the final CFP rankings), but the imbalance of the first two rounds left something to be desired for many college football fans. So while college football — and…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/college-football-playoffs-seeding-overhaul-levels-the-field-and-lays-groundwork-for-other-changes-in-2026/
Author : Chip Patterson
Publish date : 2025-05-24 12:23:00
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