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College Football Playoff expansion to 12 teams in 2025 and beyond, explained

January 2, 2024

This is the last year the College Football Playoff selections will have to deal with controversy.

Well, that's probably not true, but 2024 will be the last year that Florida State has to deal with “disrespect” stories as serious as being excluded from the CFB playoffs. Starting in the 2024-25 season, we will move to a legitimate 12-team playoff that will expand the field and allow for a more diverse range of competitors.

Now, to be fair to the current system, we've done a few things. can't believe it National championship game. The Michigan-Alabama and Washington-Texas games ultimately proved that there were four correct teams, and both games ended in close games.

That being said, while it would be great to see a more diverse field, there are some weird little caveats to how teams will be selected going forward. I'll elaborate on these in preparation for what this process will look like in his year.

The power is…6?!

The process begins with the six highest-ranked champions in the conference. Yes, that's a bit of a stretch, but winning the conference is the first step to receiving an automatic playoff bid.

Normally, this would mean adding yet another to the Power 5, but with the breakup of the Pac-12, this becomes even more uncertain. For example, he removed the Pac-12 from the conversation and when you look at the 2023 winner, here are the teams that automatically join:

No. 1 Michigan State (Big Ten Champion)
No. 2 Texas (Big 12 Champion)
No. 3 Alabama (SEC Champion)
4th place Florida State University (ACC Champion)
No.11 Tulane (AAC Champion)
No.12 Liberty (Conference USA Champion)

Top 4 are very important

Among these six automatic bids, there is a huge incentive to rank as one of the top four teams. These teams will advance to the quarterfinals with first-round byes. It remains to be seen how important this is, but logically speaking, having him one less game in the playoffs will have a huge impact on the team's ability to have success in the playoffs.

What about the other 6 teams?

The remaining six bids will be determined purely by final standings, regardless of conference championship status. These are seeded, and like any playoff system, the lowest ranks play the highest.

This means that the 2023-based slate will look like this…

1st round