The evolution of the path to a college football championship over the past 30 years has been quite interesting. For many years there was no championship game, where instead the champion was the team ranked number one in the AP poll at the end of the season. That being a seemingly dull way to crown a national champion led the NCAA to introduce the BCS national championship game in 1998. After all the regular season games finished, a computer compiled with different rankings throughout the season picked the two best teams in the country to face off in the ‘BCS National Championship Game’. This method stayed in practice for 15 years, and people still were not content with one game between only the ‘top 2 teams’ deciding a winner. Consequently, college football fans welcomed the inaugural 4 team college football playoff in 2014, which would simply work like a semifinal to final format. The four teams in the playoff were selected by a committee consisting of former players, administrators, athletic directors, and coaches. The format clearly worked, as in 2014 the four-seeded Ohio State Buckeyes won the playoff, a team that would not have gotten a chance to compete for the title in previous years. Over the next ten years, the four-team playoff worked out decently well, even with the repetition we saw in many Alabama-Clemson and Alabama-Georgia matchups. This system, while better, still had flaws mostly concerning who got in according to the committee. The biggest instance where noticeable backlash was presented came last year when championship-caliber teams Florida State and Georgia were left out, some would say unfairly (check my article from last year on that situation). But anyway, it seemed like a four-team playoff was still too small to guarantee a deserving champion. The consensus was to expand not by doubling but by tripling the number of teams in the playoff. Ultimately launching the brand new 12 team college football playoff. And with it recently concluding, how much did it improve on the old format?
The short answer: a lot. The most obvious reason is that in the old format, the two teams in the championship game would have been on the outside looking in. Notre Dame would have been the 5th seed and Ohio State the 6th, so not in the top four according to the committee. Yet as the playoff went on in this new tournament it was clear that both of these teams were more than deserving to be included. Ohio State played like the best team in the country over their four-game span, proving especially dominant in their first two games. The sometimes subjective seeding by the committee in past years kept a lot of deserving teams and possible contenders from getting a shot at the trophy. Those teams though, were not included due to mishaps and losses during the season which could have been avoided; what the new 12-team format allows is more room for error during the regular season for teams that hope to contend in the tournament. The champion Buckeyes were anything but perfect in the regular season ending it with a shocking loss against a subpar Michigan team. The unrest among their fans reached a point where there were calls to fire their head coach Ryan Day. Yet when it mattered he got his team together and put on one of the most impressive runs I’ve seen in college football in a while, proving that one low point should not define a season. Their resilience and response to the doubters verified their caliber.
Ohio State’s path also pointed out a flaw in the system that will surely need to be patched for next year. The flaw being how seeding is decided. For those who don’t know, in the 12-team playoff the “top four seeds” get a first-round bye, but conference championship winners decide the top four teams. Even though these teams may not have been traditionally ranked as top four, they automatically gain these byes by winning their conferences. Maybe this would be viable in a world where conferences are created equal, but in 2025 that is not the case. The Big Ten and SEC have dominated the sport for years and just this past year have added more talented programs to each conference. Consequently, this leaves the remaining conferences with a shallower talent pool devaluing how impressive it is to win said conference. The top four seeds this year were: 1 Oregon, 2 Georgia, 3 Boise State, and 4 Arizona State. There is no doubt that all these teams were good and deserved to be in the playoffs, but I think everyone can agree Boise State and Arizona State were not top four teams in the country. This was backed up by the committee’s overall rankings where Boise State was 9th and ASU 12th. Going back to Ohio State’s schedule, after crushing Tennessee they had to face off against the first-seeded Oregon Ducks. Many talking heads and people online pointed out that this matchup could have easily been worthy of a final game, as on their days both Oregon and Ohio State showed they could be the best in the nation. The schedule seemed to cheat Oregon more than Ohio State though; they had been flawless the entire season boasting a 13-0 record and finishing with a Big Ten title win against Penn State. Yet immediately after the brackets were released a major issue was pointed out by fans. While Oregon had the luxury of the first-round bye, Penn State had an easier path with a first game against SMU and then Boise State. Two good teams, yes, but nowhere near Ohio State caliber. The format almost seemed to reward a loss in the Big Ten title game by the way the bracket panned out. And I think what ultimately was the main factor in this messed up seeding was the byes given to the top four conference champions. There is a straightforward solution though.
Before that though there is one thing that I would like to address. That being that I understand why they initially gave these byes: to give more significance to conference championship games. The NCAA wants to hype up these games as much as possible to ultimately bolster the number of fans watching them, increasing the revenue earned. As a fan the added reward of these byes does certainly make them more intriguing, but it is a little overkill. I think a simple solution would be that the top four teams ranked by the committee get the byes. The Power Four Conference champions would get an automatic bid into the playoffs, just without the bye. An automatic bid would still bring added suspense to the conference championship games, just in a more logical fashion. And of course, the highest-ranked non-power four school should also get an automatic bid into the playoff. If this version of seeding were implemented this year the bracket would look like this:
12 Clemson
5 Notre Dame Winner of 12/5
4 Penn State
8 Indiana Winner of Penn State game
9 Boise State Winner of 9/8 Winner of Oregon game
1 Oregon
11 Arizona State Championship
6 Ohio State Winner of 11/6
3 Texas
7 Tennessee Winner of Texas game
10 SMU Winner of 10/7 Winner of Georgia Game
2 Georgia
I would say this would reward the teams that perform best during the season, like Oregon. The game after their bye is not nearly as challenging as playing the Buckeyes. It also gives what looks like more intriguing first-round games that seem more evenly matched than what we actually got.
Well anyway, don’t be surprised if, in the near future, there is an announcement that they are modifying the 12-team CFP format because I am just one of many who noticed its flaws, though they are relatively minor. We should all just be thankful that we finally got to experience the long-awaited 12-team playoff which delivered us an extra couple of weeks of college football.
