2024 brought an abundance of changes to the college football landscape. Throughout the 2023 season, we learned that there would be some differences, with conference realignment, the growing chaos of the transfer portal and the long-awaited 12-team playoff format.
This season, any team could get a win on any given day. It seemed like every week, there was some sort of unprecedented upset like Vanderbilt stunning Alabama or Michigan shocking Ohio State in Columbus. These upsets often left us questioning how this would affect a team’s chance to make the playoffs.
Unlike previous seasons where we saw a number of teams finish the regular season unbeaten, this season we saw only one team in college football finish the regular season undefeated. That team was the Oregon Ducks, the now 13-0 Big Ten champion and the number one seed in the new playoff.
All of this begs the question, is the new format good for the sport and did the college football playoff committee get it right?
Flashback to last season, when the committee left the 13-0 Atlantic Coast Conference champion Florida State out of the then four-team format after their star quarterback Jordan Travis was sidelined with an injury in the final few weeks.
This sparked a massive uproar in college football, and many thought the new 12-team format would change that.
The new format helps to alleviate some of the debate for teams, by allowing more teams to get in. However, it does not completely eliminate it. The debate this season is whether SMU or Alabama should’ve been in over one another.
No matter what the bracket ended up looking like for either the old four-team format, or the new 12-team format, there’s no correct answer as to whether they got it right.
Teams will have some type of argument about why they should be chosen over their competition, and that’s part of the problem in college athletics.
Specifically for football, the selection of who gets in and where they are ranked is decided entirely by the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. The committee is made of athletic directors, former coaches and others involved with college football. The selection is solely based on the committee’s opinion of teams and their success.
This opens the door for people such as Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin and Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey to start lobbying and make their arguments as to why their teams should be in over the teams from different conferences.
It is an ongoing debate that will never end, as long as the fate of the playoff is decided completely on the committee’s opinion.
The four-team playoff format often left people saying an expanded playoff is needed. This is exactly what we got in the 12-team playoff format. While it is good that the new format allows more teams to join, which should make the playoffs more competitive and exciting, it’s far from perfect.
The new format rewards middle-tier programs, in particular the 5-8 seeds. While 1-4, the highest-ranked conference champions, get a first-round bye. The 5-8 seeds get a first-round game at their home stadium, which is great for the sport.
The home games undoubtedly give an edge to the home teams. Home field advantage has been a significant factor in college football for years. The pageantry and tradition are second to none, like the all-famous Penn State white out. The downside is that teams seeded 1-4 do not get home games, they wait to play the first-round winners in a neutral site, bowl selected stadiums.
What about Oregon? They beat Ohio State and Penn State, and those two teams get a home game. Oregon will have to wait for the next round, where they will have to potentially play Ohio State for a second time.
This also brings significant challenges to the 9-12 seeds, who will have to travel to play on the road in some of the most competitive and loudest stadiums in football.
Another flaw in the format is the bracket and how it’s seeded. The sixth seed Penn State Nittany Lions could have an easier path to the semi-final than the undefeated number one seed in Oregon, who just beat Penn State in the Big Ten championship.
Penn State will host the loser of the ACC championship, SMU, a team with zero top 25 wins, where they will have to play in a white out game in Happy Valley. Assuming the Nittany Lions win this game, they will be awaited by Boise State who is ranked ninth but earned the third seed by being the third highest-ranked conference champion.
The Broncos, who have Heisman Trophy hopeful in Running Back Ashton Jeanty, have a strong résumé with two ranked wins and a single loss to number one Oregon by three points during a road game in Eugene. That loss came in week two, when the Ducks were trying to work in their new quarterback and find their identity at the same time.
While the resume looks good for Boise State on paper, they play in a significantly weaker conference, and Penn State plays in one of the most competitive conferences in college football.
In the college football world, this means there is a potential for a significant talent dip once you get deeper into a team’s depth chart. This would lead Penn State to be a decently large favorite over Boise State. Assuming they win, they would move into the semi-final, when the road gets tough.
On the other hand, Oregon gets a bye but has no home game. They will play either 8 seed Ohio State, who the Ducks beat earlier in the season by one point in Eugene, or 9 seed Tennessee. Either of these opponents would be tougher tests than the likes of a SMU or a Boise State, where you might see the dip as you get deeper on depth charts.
No matter what happens, there will always be flaws. There are a couple of ways that could help eliminate some of the major flaws that we see in the new format.
An easy fix for the playoff would be to re-seed the bracket after the first round to allow for a balance, the one seed playing the lowest remaining seed, the two seeds playing the second lowest remaining seed, and so on. This also allows all the higher seeds to have home field advantage in the first round.
Another fix that would be a little bit more complicated would be to expand the playoff to 16 teams and eliminate the first-round byes. While having the first two rounds be at home sites for the 1-8 seeds, this keeps the pageantry and tradition alive and allows for some excitement around campuses and generates higher revenues for schools.
