College Football Playoff committee changes seeding process for upcoming season
Last year’s College Football Playoff, the first ever 12-team end to the season, created quite a bit of controversy. The committee’s decision to allow the top four conference champions a bye in the playoff caused a couple of much lower-ranked teams, Arizona State and Boise State, to skip the first round while teams ranked higher had to play in the opening round. That will not happen again in 2025.
The playoff management committee announced on Thursday that the top four seeds, all of which get byes in the first round, will be the four highest-ranked teams regardless of conference standing.
“The College Football Playoff (CFP) Management Committee, comprised of the 10 FBS conference commissioners and the Director of Athletics at the University of Notre Dame, today voted unanimously to modify the seeding and bye policies of the 12-team Playoff for the 2025-26 season.
“The new policy will guarantee the five highest-ranked conference champions a place in the Playoff, but will no longer include a bye for the four highest-ranked champions. The 12-team bracket will now be seeded directly based on the final ranking of the CFP Selection Committee, with the four highest-ranked teams receiving a first-round bye. If one or more of the five highest-ranked conference champions are ranked outside the top 12, that team or teams would move up to the 12th seed, 11th seed, etc., based on the number of conference champions outside the top 12.
‘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,” said Rich Clark, executive director of the College Football Playoff. “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 regular season.‘”
Georgia was the No. 2 team in the 2024 College Football Playoff. It lost its quarterfinal matchup with Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. The Bulldogs earned that seed, and a bye, after taking down Texas in the SEC Championship game.
