The powers that be in College Football have decided to have their playoff be straight seeded. I've been pretty vocal that I'm not a fan of that idea.
If you remember, last season (also the first season) of the new format saw five conference champions guaranteed a spot in the 12-team playoff, with the four byes being awarded to the four top ranked conference champs. People were cool with that until the ACC decided to lay a turd in football, the Mountain West champion was better, and the Big 12 champion wasn't really a good team. What we got was this:
1-Oregon, 2-Georgia, 3-Boise State, 4-Arizona State with byes.
Clemson at Texas, SMU at Penn State, Indiana at Notre Dame and Tennessee at Ohio State were our first round matchups.
If you remember, the first round saw dominant wins by the home teams, then the second round saw all four teams with a bye lose. We ended up with 7-seed Notre Dame and 8-seed Ohio State in the national championship game.
So this new format would have changed things to:
1-Oregon, 2-Georgia, 3-Texas, 4-Penn State would get the byes with the first round matchups being Clemson at Notre Dame, Arizona State at Ohio State, SMU at Tennessee and Boise State at Indiana.
So here is why I don't like the change.
FIRST ROUND GETS WORSE
Last year, all of the first round games were blowouts despite "better" teams playing in them. Sure, we've swapped out Texas and Penn State for Boise State and Arizona State (which bumped Tennessee and Indiana to host status) but the games aren't better. They aren't better on paper, they aren't better for the bettors, and they aren't better for television. You've made those games worse.
The trade off is that the second round (the quarterfinals) is much better. If we advance the home teams, we'd get Notre Dame-Penn State, Ohio State-Texas, Tennessee-Georgia and Indiana-Oregon. Those would seem to be better games than what we actually got ... kinda. Texas-Boise State wasn't that bad, but Penn State-Boise State was. Yet, we also got Oregon-Ohio State in the Rose Bowl and Georgia-Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. Those two are fantastic matchups that we traded in for Indiana-Oregon?
Also, notice we got Notre Dame-Penn State and Ohio State-Texas in the quarterfinals. Those were the exact same matchups we ended up with in the semifinals last year.
OHIO STATE WON IT ALL ANYWAY
People were upset that Ohio State dropped and Oregon ended up having to play them in the quarterfinals. So? Even if you felt Ohio State was the second best team in the nation, they were the fourth place team in the Big Ten standings and didn't play in the Big Ten championship game. As good as they were on paper ... and as good as they were in the 2024-2025 playoff ... they deserved their seeding.
And they ended up dominating Tennessee, Oregon, Texas and Notre Dame to win the title. Under the new format, they may have faced Arizona State, Texas, Georgia and Oregon to win the national championship. They played two of those teams anyway and could've possibly played a third if Tennessee beats Georgia in the quarterfinals. The change is the order of who they played.
Sure, that may be just a coincidence that hit this year, but it seems more like shuffling the deck than really making anything really more fair. Of course Oregon fans would disagree to this, but we may have had a more entertaining tournament the old way.
CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS ARE DEEMED POINTLESS
This has been a huge sticking point for me. In the old format, conference championship games were a huge deal. Winning one -- especially the SEC and Big Ten -- guaranteed a bye. Even the ACC got two teams in, with their champion receiving a bye. The new systems de-incentivizes them and actually makes them pointless.
For example: Oregon faced Penn State in the Big Ten title game. Oregon, in the new format, would've locked in a bye no matter what happened in that game, so the Ducks would have been better served to just sit all their important guys. Why risk and injury that ... oh ... I don't know ... Georgia suffered trying to win their conference title game? So if you feel you have a bye locked in, just quit the conference championship game. It isn't worth it. And that, right there, sucks for college football and a huge tradition of the spot.
Yeah, winning one still matters to teams like Boise State, Clemson or Arizona State who only got in due to winning it. But in the SEC and Big Ten where those are special showdowns? It is dumb.
DOES THIS REALLY EVEN MATTER ANYWAY?
And why change? After this season, the playoff likely expands to 16-teams for the 2026-2027 season and then there are no byes to worry about. Everything I laid out will be happening then, but it's more organic that way (though could you see four champs guaranteed home games??)
