Following days of meetings in New Orleans, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey held a joint press conference in which they expressed support for changing the seeding process to the College Football Playoff for the 2024 season.
The 2024 season was the first of the 12-team format, which reserved the top four seeds -- and their corresponding first-round byes -- to the four highest-ranked conference champions. This format, first debuted in June of 2021, was dubbed the "6+6" model, in which half the field was reserved for the six highest-ranked conference champions and the remaining six went to at-large teams.
Weeks later, the SEC annexed Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12, setting off a chain reaction that killed the Pac-12 As We Knew It. The CFP altered its format to "5+7" following the Pac-12's demise, but otherwise the format remained untouched.
As we saw, the No. 3 seed went to Mountain West Boise State, the committee's 9th-ranked team, and 12th-ranked Big 12 champ Arizona State earned the No. 4 seed. As a down-stream consequence, No. 1 seed Oregon had to face No. 8 seed Ohio State in the quarterfinals, a 41-21 Buckeyes win. In fact, each of the bracket's top four seeds lost their quarterfinal games, something the CFP's original architects surely did not envision back in the summer of 2021.
Back then, they envisioned Oregon as the Pac-12 champion, Ohio State winning the Big Ten, Georgia as the champion of the SEC and Texas as the Big 12 champ.
On Wednesday, Petitti and Sankey argued for a more straightforward seeding system. Five spots would be reserved for the five highest-ranked conference champions, but admittance would not correspond to a seeding guarantee. In fairness to the B1G and SEC commissioners, this is similar to how NCAA tournaments operate across other sports.
In that format, the 2024-25 bracket would've looked like this:
(9) Boise State at (8) Indiana
winner plays (1) Oregon at the Rose Bowl
(12) Clemson at (5) Notre Dame
winner plays (4) Penn State at the Peach Bowl
(10) SMU at (7) Tennessee
winner plays (2) Georgia at the Sugar Bowl
(11) Arizona State at (6) Ohio State
winner plays (3) Texas at the Fiesta Bowl
The 2025 season is the last of the original 12-year CFP contract. As such, it requires unanimous approval from all nine FBS commissioners plus Notre Dame's athletics director to enact changes.
The format for 2026 and beyond is openly in the haggling process right now, so it's possible the other commissioners stand their ground for 2025, or perhaps they work out a compromise in which conference champions are guaranteed home games if they do not earn byes. Home teams went 4-0 in first-round games this past December.
And what of 2026 and beyond? Surely that was discussed behind those closed mahogany doors in New Orleans. The current expectation is that those leagues, who have already negotiated themselves the power to enact changes without the other leagues' consent, will push for a 14-team format in which each league reserves four bids apiece.
Well, then.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.