What we like and don't like about the CFP seeding change

After months of gathering to sermon things to sermon astatine aboriginal meetings, the radical successful complaint of the College Football Playoff really made a determination connected Thursday, and it was 1 we've assumed they'd marque for a while. After past year's 12-team CFP gave byes to the 4 astir highly ranked league champions, this year's volition not.

Conference commissioners voted to spell to a straight seeding format (with 5 spots inactive reserved for league champions) successful 2025.

There are inactive plentifulness of things to sermon regarding what the CFP volition look similar successful 2026 and beyond -- and bully lord, don't adjacent get maine started connected however overmuch I don't similar wherever we're astir apt headed successful that respect -- but with the 2025 play starting successful little than 100 days, we astatine slightest cognize however things volition instrumentality signifier this fall. Here are a fewer thoughts regarding these changes.

A 2024 simulation

To spot what thing mightiness look similar successful the future, my archetypal measurement is ever to revisit the past. Last year's 12-teamer, the first-ever genuine tournament astatine the highest level of assemblage football, so handed retired byes to league champions and gave america the weird ocular of having 2 antithetic numbers listed adjacent to the teams successful the bracket.

Boise State, for instance, was ranked ninth successful the wide CFP rankings, but the Broncos got the No. 3 effect arsenic the third-ranked league champ. Arizona State was simultaneously 12th and fourth. Granted, the NFL does thing similar, giving the apical 3 seeds successful each league to the winners of each idiosyncratic part (which occasionally gives america unusual pairings specified arsenic 9-8 Tampa Bay hosting 11-6 Philadelphia successful 2023 oregon the 10-7 Los Angeles Rams hosting 14-3 Minnesota successful 2024). But from the start, it was wide determination was immoderate dissatisfaction with this approach. And erstwhile some BSU and ASU mislaid successful the quarterfinals -- each 4 league champions did, really -- it became abundantly wide that this was going to change. It conscionable took astir 5 months to really happen.

Regardless, let's look astatine however the 2024 playoff would person taken signifier with consecutive seeding alternatively of conference-champ byes.

First round

12 Clemson astatine 5 Notre Dame (SP+ projection: Irish by 13.1, 79.4% triumph probability)
11 Arizona State astatine 6 Ohio State (OSU by 24.2*, 93.6% triumph probability)
10 SMU astatine 7 Tennessee (Tennessee by 7.0, 66.9% triumph probability)
9 Boise State astatine 8 Indiana (Indiana by 12.5, 78.3% triumph probability)

(* Here's your reminder that SP+ truly didn't spot Arizona State overmuch past season, chiefly due to the fact that the Sun Devils were a beauteous mean squad aboriginal successful the season. At 5-2 with a fig of adjacent wins and a sketchy-looking nonaccomplishment astatine Cincinnati without injured backmost Sam Leavitt, they entered November ranked successful the 50s. While they surely roseate during their late-season blistery streak, they finished the play lone 35th. They were genuinely fantabulous precocious successful the play -- conscionable inquire Texas -- but they were 6-1 successful one-score games heading into the CFP, and they were fortunate to scope November with the Big 12 rubric inactive wrong reach.)

In past year's existent archetypal round, the 4 location teams (Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State and Texas) were projected arsenic favorites by an mean of 7.2 points per SP+. The mean dispersed was Home Team -8.9. The results were really overmuch much lopsided than that, and that astir apt wouldn't beryllium immoderate antithetic with the matchups supra -- here, location teams are projected favorites by an mean of 14.2. Changing to consecutive seeding wouldn't person made the archetypal circular much competitive.

Assuming each 4 location teams triumph successful this simulation, that gives america the pursuing quarterfinals.

Quarterfinals

Rose Bowl: 1 Oregon vs. 8 Indiana (SP+ projection: Oregon by 5.9, 64.4% triumph probability)
Fiesta Bowl: 4 Penn State vs. 5 Notre Dame (PSU by 0.7, 51.8% triumph probability)
Sugar Bowl: 3 Texas vs. 6 Ohio State (OSU by 7.1, 67.1% triumph probability)
Peach Bowl: 2 Georgia vs. 7 Tennessee (UGA by 2.4, 55.9% triumph probability)

Interestingly enough, we got 2 of these 4 matchups successful existent life, but they were the 2 semifinals -- Ohio State's 28-14 triumph implicit Texas successful the Cotton Bowl and Notre Dame's precocious 27-24 triumph implicit Penn State successful the Orange Bowl. Now these games instrumentality spot successful New Orleans and Glendale, Arizona, respectively. We'll conveniently task those results to stay the same. Meanwhile, SP+ says there's lone astir a 36% accidental that the different 2 projected favorites (Oregon and Georgia) some win, but we'll rotation with that.

Semifinals

Cotton Bowl: 1 Oregon vs. 5 Notre Dame (SP+ projection: Oregon by 2.1, 55.3% triumph probability)
Orange Bowl: 2 Georgia vs. 6 Ohio State (OSU by 6.8, 66.6% triumph probability)

With those triumph probabilities, there's lone astir a 37% accidental that some projected favorites win, and this clip we'll heed that and task an upset: Conveniently, we'll accidental Notre Dame upsets Oregon, giving america the nonstop aforesaid Fighting Irish-Buckeyes rubric crippled we got successful existent life.

Final

5 Notre Dame vs. 6 Ohio State

Again, we saw this one.

Who would person benefited from this change?

In all, utilizing my pre-CFP SP+ projections from December, here's a examination of what each team's nationalist rubric likelihood were heading into the tourney versus what they'd person looked similar with consecutive seeding.

Not surprisingly, Arizona State's and Boise State's likelihood would person sunk without receiving a bye, but their rubric likelihood were minimal regardless. The teams that really ended up wounded the astir by the alteration would person been 2-seed Georgia, archetypal 5-seed Texas and archetypal 11-seed SMU. The main crushed for the downshift successful odds? They'd person each been placed connected Ohio State's broadside of the bracket. Meanwhile, Ohio State and Tennessee's likelihood would person benefited from the elemental information that they would nary longer beryllium paired with unbeaten No. 1 Oregon successful the Rose Bowl quarterfinal. Obviously Ohio State handled that situation with aplomb, but the Buckeyes inactive had to ace that test, past triumph 2 much games to instrumentality the title.

Beyond Ohio State and Tennessee, some Indiana and Oregon would person seen their rubric likelihood amended a spot with consecutive seeding, though for antithetic reasons. Indiana would person gotten a first-round location crippled alternatively of having to question to South Bend, portion Oregon would person avoided Ohio State until a imaginable finals matchup.

Takeaways

Good: The No. 5 effect isn't rather arsenic uniquely invaluable now

We ne'er got to spot the 12-team playoff arsenic primitively envisioned, with six league champions earning bids from a beingness that featured 5 powerfulness conferences. Instead, betwixt the announced adoption of the 12-team playoff and its existent arrival, the SEC officially added Oklahoma and Texas to its roster portion the Big Ten, with assistance from the Big 12, cannibalized the Pac-12. With lone 4 powerfulness conferences remaining, we ended up with lone 5 league champions guaranteed entry, and with the organisation of powerfulness getting further consolidated (we inactive person 4 powerfulness conferences, but it's intelligibly a Power Two and Other Two), that near america with an awkward bracket.

For starters, the caller powerfulness organisation meant that the No. 5 effect -- astir surely the higher-ranked squad betwixt the losers of the Big Ten and SEC title games -- would get an astir unfair advantage. As I wrote backmost successful December, "the likelihood are beauteous bully that the teams earning the No. 4 and 12 seeds (aka the 2 lowest-ranked league champs) volition beryllium the weakest teams successful the tract .... Texas, the top-ranked non-champion and 5-seed, is so pitted against what SP+ thinks are the No. 17 and No. 30 teams successful the state and truthful has fantabulous likelihood of reaching the semifinals."

As you spot above, Texas really entered the CFP with amended rubric likelihood (17.2%) than Georgia (16.6%), a higher-ranked squad successful SP+ and the squad that had conscionable defeated the Longhorns successful the SEC rubric game. In theory, giving a squad a bye and asking them to triumph 3 games alternatively of 4 would beryllium a monolithic advantage. But successful signifier Texas' likelihood of winning 2 games (against Clemson and ASU) were amended than Georgia's likelihood of winning 1 (Notre Dame). That's not peculiarly fair, is it?

Bad: Conference rubric games mean adjacent little now

Making this alteration would person so fixed the SEC champion amended rubric likelihood than the SEC runner-up. That's good, but it comes with a cost. In the re-simulation above, you'll announcement that some the winners and losers of the SEC and Big Ten rubric games ended up with byes and top-four seeds. That means determination were astir virtually nary stakes -- too a quest to debar large injuries like what afflicted Georgia -- successful either game.

Meanwhile, successful the ACC championship, SMU mislaid to Clemson but hardly fell successful the CFP rankings (and, much specifically, inactive got in) due to the fact that the playoff committee didn't privation to punish the Mustangs for playing a 13th crippled portion others astir them successful the rankings were already done astatine 12. Add to that the information that the consecutive seeding attack diminished the supra rubric likelihood for 4 of the 5 league champions successful the field, and it leads you toward a beauteous casual question: Why are we adjacent playing these games?

Commissioners of the powerfulness conferences person beauteous intelligibly had that successful their minds arsenic they've discussed a convoluted (and, successful my ain opinion, patently ridiculous) caller playoff operation that hands aggregate automatic bids to each of the apical 4 conferences: up to 4 each for the SEC and Big Ten and apt 2 each for the ACC and Big 12. With this operation successful place, they tin drift from rubric games and toward aggregate play-in games wrong each conference. I perfectly hatred this thought -- if you privation to wreck the integrity of the regular season, thing would bash that faster than a 7-5 oregon 8-4 Big Ten squad perchance stealing a bid from a 10-2 oregon 11-1 comrade that was vastly superior successful the regular play -- but you tin astatine slightest recognize wherefore the commissioners themselves, facing a satellite with diminished league rubric games (and ever looking for much TV spectacles), would effort to get originative successful this regard.

Straight seeding doesn't alteration each that much. Ohio State was fixed a harder rubric way past twelvemonth than would person existed with consecutive seeding, but the Buckeyes cruised regardless, winning 4 games by a combined 70 points. Meanwhile, adjacent with a bye, Boise State and Arizona State weren't apt to triumph 3 games and spell each the way. The squad that champion peaks successful December and January volition triumph 2025's rubric conscionable similar it did successful 2024, we'll bask ourselves each the same, and we'll beryllium facing different alteration successful 2026 nary substance what.

The countdown toward 2025 continues.