The theme of the 2024 college football season is undoubtedly one of change. We’ve got Oregon in the Big Ten, Texas in the SEC, and the whole Bay Area now part of the Atlantic Coast Conference. And while it’ll take some time to get used to the realigned conferences, the most drastic shift we’ll see in the sport this year is coming to its postseason format.
The four-team College Football Playoff is expanding to 12 teams. That means more teams, more games … and more confusion. The rules regarding seeding and scheduling are new and a bit more complicated than they were in the past. So, we’re here to help simplify it all.
Selection and seeding
Teams will still be chosen and ranked by a 13-member selection committee that meets weekly over the final six weeks of the season, using the criteria that has previously been established. The weekly rankings will be unveiled on Tuesday nights on ESPN, beginning on Nov. 5. Selection Sunday will take place on Dec. 8, the day after all of the conference championship games conclude. This year’s selection committee chair is Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel.
The five conference champions ranked highest by the selection committee receive automatic berths to the CFP. The final seven spots go to the highest-ranked at-large teams. There is no cap on the number of spots one conference can receive.
The committee won’t modify its rankings to avoid rematches between teams that played during the regular season. And there’s no re-seeding after the full bracket is set.
Because there are now just four power conferences (the Big Ten, the SEC, the ACC and the Big 12), having five AQ spots for conference champions guarantees one spot for the Group of Five every year. The Group of 5 champion will either be seeded where it is ranked if it’s in the top 12 of the final set of rankings — or at No. 12 if it is actually ranked lower than that. Last year serves as a good example of how this is going to work. Liberty was ranked No. 23 in the final set of CFP rankings, but the Flames would have slotted in at No. 12 (ahead of Oklahoma, which was actually ranked 12th) for the bracket.
Top four seeds
The top four conference champions will receive first-round byes. Seeds 5-8 will host first-round games on campus (or at sites nearby that they’ve designated to be their home fields for the games). No. 5 will host No. 12, No. 6 will host No. 11, and so on. The four first-round games this year will take place on Friday, Dec. 20 and Saturday, Dec. 21. One game will be played on Friday, and three games will be played on Saturday.
Because the top four seeds will all be conference champions, the bracket might look a little weird. For example, because of upsets in conference championship games in 2022, 11-2 Clemson, ranked seventh in the final CFP rankings, would have actually been the No. 3 seed under this model. And 10-3 Utah, ranked eighth, would have been the No. 4 seed. Both teams would get a bye, while TCU (ranked third but not a conference champion), Ohio State (ranked fourth but not a conference champion) and Alabama (ranked fifth but not a conference champion) would all be hosting first-round games. The new model should put an increased importance on conference championship weekend.
Notre Dame, of course, does not play in a conference. The Fighting Irish are ineligible to receive a top four seed (and subsequent bye), because those are required to go to conference champions. But this is a tradeoff that Notre Dame is more than happy to make to maintain its independence while still ensuring access to the national championship. The Irish are off during conference championship weekend anyway, so they essentially get a preemptive bye, plus they still get to host games in South Bend, Ind., if they’re in the 5-8 seed range. Then-Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick was part of the four-person working group that came up with this format in the first place, so of course it’s more than palatable for the Irish.
Later rounds, games and sites
Quarterfinals will be played at bowl sites and will take place around New Year’s Eve/Day. The Rose Bowl, which loves its designated time slot on Jan. 1 and its subsequent sunsets, is scheduled to host a quarterfinal on Jan. 1 for this season and next. It has asked the CFP if it can be removed from the semifinal rotation and remain as a quarterfinal host on New Year’s Day moving forward.
This year, the first quarterfinal will be played at the Fiesta Bowl on Dec. 31, followed by games at the Peach, Rose and Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1.
Semifinal games will be played roughly a week to week-and-a-half after the quarters. The semifinals this year will be played on Thursday, Jan. 9 (at the Orange Bowl) and Friday, Jan. 10 (at the Cotton Bowl). The national championship game will be the latest it has ever been played — on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. The trophy will be handed out at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
What the expanded CFP fixes — and what it doesn’t
The two biggest reasons for the 12-team Playoff are inclusion and engagement. More teams get to access college football’s marquee postseason event, including at least one team from a Group of 5 league. That means every single team in the entire Football Bowl Subdivision starts the season with a path to the CFP. It might be a long shot, but there is a clearly defined route to qualify for it.
But what might end up being the best part of the new format is the number of at-large spots. There are seven designated spots for teams that do not win their conference championships, which means that teams don’t have to be perfect — or near perfect — to make the CFP anymore. And if seven spots are up for grabs, that means there’s a pool of at least 10-15 teams that will still in the mix for those spots heading into the final few weeks of the season. The new format will keep more teams and fanbases engaged in the season later than ever before. Hopefully, fans and media members will stop writing off teams completely after one loss in September. We’ll regularly see teams make the CFP with 2-3 losses. So, we’ll all need to rewire our brains a bit as we process week-to-week results.
The new 12-team CFP will not necessarily guarantee crazy upsets or Cinderella-esque runs to the title game. Additional games — and the wear and tear that requires — favor the most talented and deepest teams in college football. While we could certainly see regular 12-over-5 or 10-over-7 upsets in the first round, we might not see those teams put together a string of upsets in a row. That’s a tall task.
It’s likely that the very best teams in college football will face off in the national championship game most years, especially since they’ll get a mulligan or two in the regular season now. So. the title game matchups might look similar to ones we’ve seen in recent years — involving the Michigans, Ohio States, Georgias and Alabamas of the sport. But the path to that finish line should be a lot more entertaining with the 12-team CFP.