In 2014, the inception of the College Football Playoff caused significant waves throughout the country. It marked the first occasion in the sport’s history where the top four teams competed directly for a shot at the national championship. Now, a decade later, the College Football Playoff Committee is once again seeking to revolutionize the landscape with a proposal for a 12-team playoff format.
Under the new 12-team playoff format set to debut this upcoming fall, the structure is as follows: The four highest-ranked conference champions will be seeded from one to four and will each receive a bye in the first round. Teams seeded fifth through twelfth will face off in the first round on the home field of the higher-ranked team. Specifically, the fifth-ranked team will host the twelfth-ranked team, the sixth-ranked team will play the eleventh-ranked team, the seventh-ranked team will face the tenth-ranked team, and the eighth-ranked team will meet the ninth-ranked team.
Following the first round, the quarterfinals and semifinals will be contested as part of the New Year’s Six bowl games. The national championship game will maintain its tradition of being played at a neutral site. Importantly, no conference will have an automatic qualifier under this new format, and there will be no restrictions on the number of teams from a single conference that can participate in the playoff.
Be the first to comment