College Football Playoff seeding changes – How 2024 would have played out

After months of meetings to discusses to discusses at Future Meetings, the people in charge of the college footing a decision on Thursday, and it was one weights’ For a where. After Last Year’s 12-Team CFP gave byes to the four most high-ranked conferenced champions, this year’s will not.

Conference Commissioners Voted to Go to a straight seeding format (With Five Spots Still Reserved for Conference Champions) in 2025.

There are Still Plenty of Things to Discuss Regarding What the CFP will look like in 2026 and beyond – And good lord, do even get me started on how much I do not like where we are probably headed in that reghar – But with the 2025 Season Starting in Less Than 100 days, we at left knove how these things will take this fall. Here are a few thoughts registering these changes.

A 2024 simulation

To see what to be somewhat look like in the Future, my first step is always to review the past. Last Year’s 12-Teamer, the first every genuine tournament At the highest level of college football, indeed handed out byes to conference champions and gave us the weird visual of two different times listed to the tims in the bracket.

Boise State, for Instance, was ranked ninth in the overall CFP rankings, but the broncos get the no. 3 Seed as the Third-Ranked Conference Champ. Arizona State was simultaneously 12th and fourth. Granted, the nfl does something similar, giving the top three seeds in each conference to the winners of each occasionally gives us odd pairings like 9-8 Tampa Bay Hosting 11-6 Philadelphia in 2023 or 10-7 Los Angeles Rams Hosting 14-3 Minnesota in 2024). But from the start, it was cleared there was some dissatisfection with this application. And when Both Bsu and Asu Lost in the Quarterfinals – All Four Conference Champions Did, ACTUALLY – IT BECAME ABUNDARY clear that this was going to change. It just touch about five months to actually happen.

Regardless, let’s look at how the 2024 Playoff would be taken taken shape with straight seeding instead of conference-champ byes.

First round

12 Clemson at 5 Notre Dame (SP+ Projection: Irish By 13.1, 79.4% Win Probility)
11 Arizona State at 6 OHIO STATE (OSU BY 24.2*, 93.6% Win Probility)
10 smu at 7 tennessee (tennessee by 7.0, 66.9% win probability)
9 Boise State at 8 Indiana (Indiana by 12.5, 78.3% Win Probability)

(* Here’s your reminder that SP+ Really Didn is Trust Arizona State Much Last Season, Primaryly because the sun devils fear a pretty in the season. sketchy-clicking loss at cincinnati without injured Quarterback Sam LeavittThey entered november ranked in the 50s. While they certainly rose during their last-year hot streak, they finished the year only 35th. They were genuinely excellent last in the sevent-Just Ask Texas-but they worry 6-1 in one-score games heading into the CFP, and they were lucky to reappear with the Big 12 Title Still Within REACH.)

In Last Year’s Actual first round, the Four Home Teams (Note Dame, Ohio State, Penn State and Texas) Were Projected as Favorites by an overage of 7.2 Points Per SP+. The average spread was home team -8.9. The results would actually much more lopsided than that, and that probably would be any difference with the match above – Here, home tims are projected by an overage of 14.2. Changing to straight seeding would be the first round more commentary.

Assuming All Four Home Teams Win in this Simulation, that gives us the following quarterfinals.

Quarterfinals

Rose Bowl: 1 Oregon Vs. 8 Indiana (SP+ Projection: Oregon by 5.9, 64.4% win probability)
Fiesta Bowl: 4 Penn State Vs. 5 Notre Dame (PSU By 0.7, 51.8% Win Probability)
Sugar Bowl: 3 Texas Vs. 6 OHIO STATE (OSU BY 7.1, 67.1% Win Probability)
Peach Bowl: 2 Georgia Vs. 7 tennessee (UGA by 2.4, 55.9% win probability)

Interestingly Enough, we got two of these four matches in real life, but they play the Two Semifinals-Ohio State’s 28-14 Win Over Texas in the Cotton Bowl and Note Dame’s Late 27-24 Win Over Penn State in The Orange Bowl. Now these games take place in New Orleans and Glendale, Arizona, Response. We’ll convently project those results to remain the Same. Meanwhile, SP+ Says there’s only about a 36% chance that the other Two Projected Favorites (Oregon and Georgia) Both win, but we’l roll with that.

Semifinals

Cotton Bowl: 1 Oregon Vs. 5 Notre Dame (SP+ Projection: Oregon By 2.1, 55.3% Win Probility)
Orange Bowl: 2 Georgia Vs. 6 OHIO STATE (OSU BY 6.8, 66.6% Win Probability)

With these win Probabilities, there’s only about a 37% chance that Both Projected Favorites Win, and this time we’ll heed and project: Conveniently, we’ll saay note dame upsets oregon, life The exact same fighting irish-marketyes title game we get in real life.

Final

5 Notre Dame Vs. 6 OHIO STATE

Again, We saw this one.

Who would have benefited from this change?

In all, using my pre-cfp SP+ Projections from December, Here’s a comparison of what each time’s National Title Odds Were Heading Into the Tournament Versus What they’d has looked.

Not surprisingly, Arizona State’s and Boise State’s odds would be sunk without receiving a Bye, but their title odds without minimal regles. The details that actually ended up the most by the most by the change would be 2-seed Georgia, the original 5-seed texas and original 11-se. The main reason for the downshift in odds? They’d have all bey placed on ohio status’s side of the bracket. Meanwhile, Ohio State’s and Tennessee’s odds would be benefited from the simple fact that they would have no longer be paid with no. 1 Oregon in the Rose Bowl Quarterfinal. Obviously OHIO STATE handled that challenge with aplombBut the Buckeyes Still Had to Ace That Test, then Win Two More Games to Take The Title.

Beyond ohio state and tennessee, Both Indiana and Oregon would see their title odds improve a bit with straight seeding, though for different remons. Indiana would have gotten a first-round home game instead of hassed to travel to South Bend, while Oregon would be until a potential finals matchup.

TAKEAWAYS

Good: The No. 5 seed isn is quite as uniquely valuable now

We never get to see the 12-team playoffas as Originally Envisible, with Six Conference Champions from earning bids from a universe that faceted power conferences. Instead, between adoption of the 12-team plane and its actual arival, the secially added oklahoma and text to its roster, the big ten, with help from the Big 12, Cannibalized the Pac-12. With only Four Power Conferences Remaining, We ended up with only Five Conference Champions Guaranteed entry, and with the distribution of Power -Power Consolidated It’s clearly a power two and other two), that left us with an awkward bracket.

For starters, the new power distribution more that the no. 5 Seed-Almost Certainly the High-Ranked Team BetWeen The Losers of the Big Ten and Sec Championship Games-Would get an Almost Unfair Advantage. As i Wrote Back in December“The odds are pretty good that the tims earning the No. 4 and 12 Seeds (AKA The Two Lowest-Ranked Conferred Conferred Conference Champs) Will Be The Weakest Teams in the Field …. Texas, The Top-Ranked Non-Champion 5-se, is indeed again what SP+ Thinks in the Country and No.

As you see Above, Texas Actually entered the CFP with Better Title Odds (17.2%) Than Georgia (16.6%), A Higher-Ranked Team in SP+ And The Team That Had Just defeated the Longhorns in the SEC Title Game. In theory, giving a team a bye and assign them to win three games instead of for a massive advantage. But in Practice Texas’ odds of wining tw That’s not particularly Fair, is it?

Bad: Conference Title Games means even less

Making this change would have indeed given the second champion bet Title odds than the sec running-up. That’s good, but it comes with a cost. In the re-shamulation above, you’ll notice that Both the Winners and Losers of the Sec and Big Ten Ten Title Games ended up with byes and top-fore. That means there are water almost literally no stakes – besides a Quest to Avoid Major Injuries Like what afflicted Georgia – In Either Game.

Meanwhile, in the acc championship, smu list to Clemson but Barely fell in the CFP rankings (and, more special, Still Got in) because the playoff committee dign “T Want to Punish The Mustangs for Playing A 13th game while others in the rankings would be very much done at 12. Field, and it leads you talk a pretty easy question: where are we even playing these games?

Commissioners of the power conferences have pretty clearly had that in their minds as they’ve discussed a convoluted (And, in my own opinion, patently ridiculous) New Playoff Structure that Hands Multiples Automatic Bids to Each of the Top Four Conferences: Up to Four Each for the Sec and Big Ten and Likely Two Each for the Acc and Big 12. Can drift from title games and talk Multiple Play-in Games Within Each Conference. I absolutely hate this idea-if you want to be written to the Regular Season, noting would do that faster than a 7-5 or 8-4 big ten team potentially stealing a bid from a 10-2 or 11-1 Vastly Superior in the Regular Season – But you can at last understand who the commissions Themselves, face a world with diminished configuration (and always looked for more tv spectacles), Would To get created in this reghar.

Straight Seeding Doesn It’s Change all that much. Ohio states was given a hander title path last year than with straight seeding, but the buckeyes cruised regles, winning for games by a combined 70 poins. Meanwhile, even with a bye, boise state and arizona state woren is like to win three games and go all the way. The team that best peaks in December and January will win 2025’s title just like it did in 2024, we’l Enjoy ourselves all the same, and we’ll be facing another change in 2026 no matter.

The Countdown Toward 2025 Continues.