College Football Playoff committee adopts major change to 2025 format |
Brandon Rink
· · Thursday, May 22 2025
Any Top 4 seed will be earned now in the eyes of the College Football Playoff committee.
As was expected, the CFP will move to "straight seeding" instead of guaranteeing the Top 4 conference champions to be in the Top 4 seeds. Those champs plus one more will still get a spot in the 12-team Playoff this year, but ones ranked outside of the Top 4, like Arizona State and Boise State last year, will not get an automatic ticket to the quarterfinals. One compromise involved, per Yahoo, is that the Top 4 ranked conference champions will still receive $8 million each. Clemson would've not notched that extra bonus last year with it being ranked behind four other conference champions in the final CFP seedings. If this model was applied to last year, Texas and Penn State would've had quarterfinal spots guaranteed and Clemson would have traveled to Notre Dame for the first round. The new format opens up the possibility for Notre Dame to earn a bye now, which was not allowed in the previous iteration of the 12-team CFP. The Playoff is expected to increase in teams starting in 2026, with a 16-team format one of the reported favorites. That would include automatic spots for Power 4 conferences, with possibly four each for the SEC and Big Ten. Huge news: 2025 @CFBPlayoff changes to straight seeding. Top 4 seeds get 1st-round byes regardless if it won a conference title, sources said. Conference champs still get auto-bids but are seeded based on ranking. This will be final year of 12-team playoff w/2026 playoff… The decision was expected to include a financial compromise to continue distributing $8 million to the top four-highest ranked conference champions even if those teams are not seeded in the top four.
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