College football’s national champion is about to be determined in a whole new way.
Following a decade of a four-team playoff format, the 2024 season is the first to use an expanded, 12-team field for the College Football Playoff.
Just as expansion has opened more pathways to a title for more teams, it has also created more room for debate about who should get in, who should be left out and where the games will be played. Let’s get into it.
Who decides who makes the cut?
The College Football Playoff has used a selection committee since its first season in 2014, and that hasn’t changed. A 13-member committee, which has announced its rankings weekly since November, will set the bracket when it unveils the final 12-team rankings on Dec. 8.
What is the committee looking for?
This season, one of the flashpoint issues is how the committee will view teams who have produced stronger records against a weaker strength of schedule versus others with two or more losses who have played a tougher overall schedule.
The SEC, one of college sports’ two most powerful conferences along with the Big Ten, has produced four of the last five national champions, but it does not have a single standout this fall. As its schools have largely beat up on one another, the conference has publicly lobbied for the committee to prioritize strength of schedule, which could help SEC teams.
The committee considers “the strength of schedule in all the conversations we have,” Warde Manuel, Michigan’s athletic director and the CFP committee chair, told ESPN while unveiling rankings in November. “It all comes into a piece of what we debate and what we discuss.”
Does winning your conference title mean you automatically make the field?
No. There are 10 conferences in the Football Bowl Subdivision of the NCAA. The 12-team field won’t include the winners of each, however. The 12 will be drawn from:
- The five highest-ranking conference champions
- Plus the next seven highest-ranked teams
How is the bracket seeded?
The four highest-ranked conference champions will be seeded 1-4 and rewarded with a first-round bye. That means the bracket could look different from the committee’s final rankings. Take, for example, eighth-ranked Miami. If it wins the ACC, which it currently leads, it would earn a top-four seeding as one of the four highest-ranked conference champs, even though it currently sits outside the top four.
A note that won’t affect this season, but could apply in the future: Reserving the first four seeds for conference champions means that a team that doesn’t play in a conference, such as Notre Dame, could still finish ranked in the top four but could only earn a No. 5 seed at the highest.
Once the first four seeds are determined, that will leave eight teams left to place in the bracket. Those teams will be seeded 5-12 based on their final ranking. The committee has said that when it considers seeding, it will not attempt to avoid rematches from conference play.
Oh, and just to be clear, there is no re-seeding of the bracket once it’s finalized. It’s just like March Madness: Print out the bracket and game out all of your favorite team’s possible opponents en route to the title to your heart’s desire.
My team just made the first round. Where are they playing?
Here is where the new iteration of the College Football Playoff goes somewhere no other playoff has gone before. The eight teams seeded 5-12 will face off in the first round on campus. Teams with better seeds will host; so a 5-seed will host a 12, a 6 hosts an 11, and so on. These games will take place either Dec. 20 or Dec. 21.
From there, the playoff quarterfinals will take place either Dec. 31 or Jan. 1 at either the Fiesta Bowl, Rose Bowl, Peach Bowl or Sugar Bowl, with the bracket’s top four seeds hosting one of those four quarterfinals.
Your team won its quarterfinal game? Congratulations, you’ve just made the semifinals held either Jan. 9 or Jan. 10 at the Cotton Bowl and Orange Bowl.
And the national championship?
It’s Jan. 20 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. That is one week later than the national championship has traditionally been played.
Got it! So, this is how the format will be moving forward for years and years, correct?
Perhaps, but don’t count on it. With college football, expect only change. In July, the playoff’s executive director told ESPN that any decisions about the format to crown next season’s champion won’t take place until after this season's Jan. 20 title game.