CFP commissioners put off any decisions on changes to playoff format, including seeding of teams
Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey speaks during SEC NCAA college football media days, July 15, 2024, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Jeffrey McWhorter, File)
DALLAS (AP) — Conference commissioners who are part of the College Football Playoff had discussions Tuesday about possible changes for next season, including how the 12-team field is seeded.
Several members of the CFP Management Committee, which is made up of all 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua, said they need more data and information before deciding on any adjustments.
“We had a really good discussion,” Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark said. “Good heartfelt conversations. Everyone gave their point of view and we’ll vet it out and see what happens.”
The committee is expected to meet again in March, a possible virtual session when it could review seeding models and other information. Another meeting is scheduled in North Texas in April.
Any changes to the playoff system or the upcoming 2025 season, the final year of the current CFP contract, would have to be approved by a unanimous vote.
Rich Clark, executive director of the CFP, said much of Tuesday’s meeting, which lasted about seven hours in a hotel at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, included a review of last season’s playoff, the first after the field tripled in size from four to 12 teams.
Clark said there was talk about next season’s format, including seeding. But he said there was no talk about the format beyond that, when the CFP’s new contract with ESPN goes into effect through 2031.
“It’s important we make these decisions for ’25 now, because they’re going to impact what happens in ’26 and beyond,” Clark said.
“You’ve got to look at it in totality,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said. “Yes, it’s one contract coming to an end and a new set of a new six-year cycle. But those things have some linkage to them as well.”
The SEC and Big Ten will have the bulk of the control over what happens with the playoff in that new contract.
Tuesday was the first time the entire CFP committee was together in person to discuss any potential changes, but the meeting came a week after SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti met together with their 34 athletic directors and came out in favor of seeding changes.
Sankey and Petitti were among several commissioners who left Tuesday’s meeting without speaking to reporters while on the way to catch flights.
“We need more information, but it was good conversation,” American Athletic Conference commissioner Tim Pernetti said. “I thought it was really productive in there ... a lot of good listening that went on from everybody.”
Pernetti said the group looked at how last season played out, and then how things would have been with straight seeding.
Under the playoff format that began last season, the four highest-ranked conference champions were guaranteed the top four seeds that come with first-round byes. That means the seeding will not always be the same as the final rankings done by the CFP selection committee.
That was probably the most controversial and confusing aspect of the expanded playoff, and the scenario happened in the first season.
After Big Ten champion Oregon and SEC winner Georgia filled the top two spots, coinciding with them being 1-2 in the CFP’s final rankings, ninth-ranked Mountain West champion Boise State got the No. 3 seed, and 12th-ranked Big 12 champion Arizona State got the fourth seed.
All four of those top seeds then lost in New Year’s Six games that made up the quarterfinal round, when going against opponents that had played first-round home games on their campuses, including SEC runner-up Texas and Big Ten runner-up Penn State.
The 12-team field included four from the Big Ten, three from the SEC and two from the ACC.
While straight seeding last season would have changed the matchups and byes — including Boise State and Arizona State having to play first-round games — it wouldn’t have altered the actual makeup of the field when still including five automatic qualifiers for conference champions and seven at-large berths.
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