ATLANTA, GA – DECEMBER 31: A general view of the CFP logo before the college football Playoff … More
In its second season of existence, the 12-team College Football Playoff will feature an updated change to its postseason format.
According to CFP officials this past Thursday, the event will conduct a straight seeding model for the upcoming fall season. This regulation will now reward college football’s top four regular-season teams with a first-round bye instead of it going to the four highest-ranked conference title winners.
According to ESPN, 10 FBS commissioners alongside Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua came to the unanimous decision on a Thursday afternoon phone call.
With the recent format change, a non-conference team like Notre Dame is now eligible to receive a first-round bye if they finish inside the CFP’s top-four ranking. However, the five highest-ranked conference title winners will still have a guaranteed slot in the 12-team postseason event.
“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,” Rich Clark, executive director of the CFP, said in a statement. “This change will continue to allow guaranteed access to the Playoff by rewarding teams for winning their conference championship, but it will also allow us to construct a postseason bracket that recognizes the best performance on the field during the entire season.”
If this year’s format was applied a season ago, the Oregon Ducks, Georgia Bulldogs, Texas Longhorns and Penn State Nittany Lions would’ve been the event’s top four seeds. Instead, Penn State and Texas were pushed out by conference title winners in the Arizona State Sun Devils (winners of the Big-12) and Boise State Broncos (Winners of the Mountain West).
Under the new format, Arizona State would have been gifted a road matchup versus the Ohio State Buckeyes in a sixth versus eleventh seeded first round matchup. Boisie State would’ve drawn a road tilt with the Indiana Hoosiers in a captivating eighth versus ninth seeded matchup.
2024 CFP Straight Seeding First Round Matchups
No. 5 Notre Dame vs. No. 12 Clemson
No. 6 Ohio State vs. No. 11 Arizona State
No. 7 Tennessee vs. No. 10 SMU
No. 8 Indiana vs. No. 9 Boise State
Despite the recent change, CFP’s delegation will continue to agree to the $8 million financial payout for the four-highest conference champions. Programs who secure a playoff berth and/or make the quarterfinals will receive $4 million compensation.
“That was the commissioners’ way of, at least for this year, holding to the commitment that they have made financially to those teams, those conference champions in particular, that would have been paid those amounts under the former system that we used last year,” Clark told ESPN.
