College Football Playoff shifts to straight seeding model, no automatic byes for top league champs

The College Football Playoff will go to a more straightforward way of filling the bracket next season, placing teams strictly on where they are ranked instead of moving pieces around to reward conference champions.

Ten conference commissioners and Notre Dame’s athletic director came to the unanimous agreement they needed Thursday to shift the model that drew complaints last season.

The new format was widely expected after last season’s jumbled bracket gave byes to Big 12 champion Arizona State and Mountain West champion Boise State, even though those teams were ranked ninth and 12th by the playoff selection committee.

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That system made the rankings and the seedings in the tournament two different things and resulted in some matchups — for instance, the quarterfinal between top-ranked Oregon and eventual national champion Ohio State — that came earlier than they otherwise might have.

“After evaluating the first year of the 12-team Playoff, the CFP Management Committee felt it was in the best interest of the game to make this adjustment,” said Rich Clark, executive director of the CFP.

The five highest-ranked champions will still be guaranteed spots in the playoff, meaning it’s possible there could be a repeat of a different sort of shuffling last season, when CFP No. 16 Clemson was seeded 12th in the bracket after winning the Atlantic Coast Conference. That ended up costing 11th-ranked Alabama a spot in the playoff.

Penn State, who was ranked fourth in the College Playoff ranking last season ahead of the playoff, would have earned a first-round bye based on the new rules. They instead hosted Southern Methodist as the bracket’s No. 6 seed at Beaver Stadium for a first-round playoff game, before facing Boise State, who earned the No. 3 seed based on last season’s model, in the CFP quarterfinals at the Fiesta Bowl. Boise State would have faced No. 8 Indiana in the first-round of the playoffs based on new model.

It would have also benifitted Texas, who was ranked third in the CFP, but hosted No. 12 seed Clemson in the first-round last season. The Longhorns, along with Penn State, Oregon, and Georgia, all would have received first round byes based on the new ruling. Georgia and Oregon were the top two seeds in last season’s playoffs.

Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey was among those who pushed for the change in the upcoming second year of the 12-team playoff, though he remained cautious about it being approved because of the unanimous vote needed.

Smaller conferences had a chance to use the seeding issue as leverage for the next set of negotiations, which will come after this season and could include an expansion to 14 teams and more guaranteed bids for certain leagues. The SEC and Big Ten will have the biggest say in those decisions.

As it stands, this will be the third different playoff system for college football in the span of three years. For the 10 years leading into last season’s inaugural 12-team playoff, the CFP was a four-team affair.

The news was first reported by ESPN, which last year signed a six-year, $7.8 billion deal to televise the expanded playoff.

Playoffs for the upcoming season begin Dec. 19 on the campuses of the teams ranked 5-8. All games beginning with the quarterfinals will be at neutral sites, ending with the title game on Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium outside Miami.

Inquirer writer Devin Jackson contributed to this article.