College Football Playoff administrators approved a proposal for a straight-seeding model for the 2025 postseason, confirms Brandon Marcello of CBS Sports. This represents a major change in Year 2 of the expanded playoff. Happy trails to automatic first-round byes for the four highest-rated conference champions and welcome to a less complex power-ranking of the selection committee’s top 12 teams.
Under the new seeding process, the top-four teams in the selection committee’s final rankings get a first-round pass to the quarterfinals. Last season, the four highest-ranked conference champions earned that distinction regardless of where those teams were slotted by the selection committee.
Eliminating the conference champion auto-bye scenarios was a major sticking point this offseason after it resulted in an unbalanced bracket last December. No individual metric suggested Mountain West champion Boise State had “earned” the No. 3 seed last season as a more deserving team than 11-win Texas or Penn State with more competitive schedules, but the Broncos benefited from the highest-ranked conference champion rule.
The top four seeds who received first-round byes last season — Oregon, Georgia, Boise State and Arizona State — all lost their opening games in the quarterfinals against opponents coming off wins the previous week.
How the 2024 CFP would’ve looked with straight seeding
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1. Oregon Ducks (13-0) *Big Ten champion |
No. 1 in final CFP Rankings, drew 1-seed |
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2. Georgia Bulldogs (11-2) *SEC champion |
No. 2 in CFP Rankings, drew 2-seed |
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3. Texas Longhorns (11-2) |
No. 3 in CFP Rankings, drew 5-seed |
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4. Penn State Nittany Lions (11-2) |
No. 4 in CFP Rankings, drew 6-seed |
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5. Notre Dame Fighting Irish (11-1) |
No. 5 in CFP Rankings, drew 7-seed |
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6. Ohio State Buckeyes (10-2) |
No. 6 in CFP Rankings, drew 8-seed |
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7. Tennessee Vols (10-2) |
No. 7 in CFP Rankings, drew 9-seed |
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8. Indiana Hoosiers (11-1) |
No. 8 in CFP Rankings, drew 10-seed |
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9. Boise State Broncos (12-1) *Mountain West champion |
No. 9 in CFP Rankings, drew 3-seed |
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10. SMU Mustangs (11-2) |
No. 10 in CFP Rankings, drew 11-seed |
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11. Arizona State Sun Devils (11-2) *Big 12 champion |
No. 12 in CFP Rankings, drew 4-seed |
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12. Clemson Tigers (10-3) *ACC champion |
No. 16 in CFP Rankings, drew 12-seed |
CBS Sports was one of the first to report the Big Ten and SEC openly supported a shift to straight seeding during a meeting between conference athletic directors and administrators in March after Penn State, Ohio State, Tennessee and Indiana were all kept out of the top-four discussion due to the conference champion rule.
Unbeaten Big Ten champion Oregon was the top seed in last year’s playoff before getting the unlucky draw of eighth-seeded Ohio State in the Rose Bowl to open. The Ducks lost, 41-21, to the eventual national champions, but Dan Lanning refused to blame seed issues on the setback.
“We had an opportunity,” Lanning said. “We didn’t take advantage of the opportunity. I am not going to make excuses for our opportunity.”
As previously reported by Marcello, discussions about expanding the field to 14 or 16 teams — with multiple automatic qualifiers reserved for the four power conferences — have been ongoing for months. The 12-team expanded playoff model’s contract ends after the 2025 season.
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