IRVING, Texas — In a College Football Playoff conference room at a resort hotel in the upscale community of Las Colinas, the industry's most powerful leaders were playing a game called the Bracket Game.
Gathered around a table, the FBS commissioner and Notre Dame's athletic director applied the 2022 rankings to project a 12-team playoff spot. Eight months after the historic 2024 CFP Selection Day (the first expanded playoffs), the bracket exercise was launched as a way to show executives the matchups, trends, and perhaps even problems created by the new format.
A few hours later, several reporters were ushered into the room to do the same, taking seats in the chairs previously occupied by commissioners as outgoing CFP Director Bill Hancock guided them through the meeting process. Before our eyes, the projection screen flickered to life with brackets. Here's his 12-team playoffs in 2022, based on the 2022 rankings and factoring in realignment moves.
The on-campus first-round matchups of the top seeds include No. 8 seed Tennessee vs. No. 9 Kansas State, No. 12 seed Tulane vs. No. 5 TCU, and No. 10 seed Southern. It included California vs. No. 7 Alabama. …No. 11 Penn State vs. No. 6 Ohio State.
The latter is a rematch.
That's problem number one: There is currently no CFP protocol to avoid a one-round rematch.
But before we get into the details of all the issues surrounding the 5+7 12-team playoff format, let's take a look at some basic rules about this format, which can be a little confusing.
– Rule 1: Format. The top five champions in the conference automatically qualify. This typically includes representatives from the Big 10, SEC, Big 12, ACC, and Group of 5 (a second his G5 champion is unlikely to jump his P4 champion in the rankings). His four highest ranked champions (this is important) will earn him the top four seeding and his first round bye. The at-large slot will be designated to the next top seven teams.
– Rule 2: Ranking. These are still created by his CFP selection committee and do not necessarily match the seeds, as seeds No. 1-4 are reserved for conference champions only. There are many examples (more on this later) where a conference champion is ranked lower than the second-place player from another conference.
– Rule 3: The New Year's Six Bowls will feature four first-round games on campus, followed by quarterfinals and semifinals. Teams are paired with the bowl in his two ways: (1) traditional relationships and (2) geography.
Enough with the rules, let's move on to the complaints. Chief among them is that there is no procedure for selection members to avoid a rematch in the first round. This is a simple and solvable problem. Similar to NCAA Basketball Tournament selection, the CFP may implement a protocol requiring first-round games to feature two teams from separate conferences when possible. Because the field is small (only 12 conferences) and the conference is steadily expanding, this may not be possible in some cases.
But most of the time it is. Such a protocol is necessary because modeling shows that this format, combined with realignment moves, creates many rematches. Entire conferences disbanded, increasing the Big 12 and SEC to 16 teams and the ACC and Big Ten to 18 teams.
While we're looking at realignment, there would have been seven conference-to-conference first-round rematches in the CFP's 10 years, which is way too many.
Even the commissioner admitted as much after a parenthetical exercise.
“There are a lot of rematches,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said.
Sankey sidestepped repeated questions about the CFP's protocols in place to avoid a rematch, citing current policy as the reason. But this is an easy answer. Yes, please avoid a rematch.
Why replay a match that happened months, if not weeks ago?
The 2014 8-9 game was supposed to be a rematch between Mississippi State and Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl three weeks earlier. In 2018, Georgia and Florida would have played in the first round. In 2021, Baylor and Oklahoma State faced off in the first round.
Don't give sequels in the first round. Save it for later. There is no doubt that there will be a rematch in three more rounds. Avoid the easy ones. This isn't complicated.
There are many other problems with the 5+7 model.
The top four teams in the final rankings that do not win their conferences are forced to play a first-round game, with the weaker conference champion receiving a bye. Is this a problem? It depends on who you ask. One of the goals of this format was to maintain the value of the regular season by rewarding conference champions.
For example, in 2022, No. 4 Ohio State (non-champion) will receive a No. 6 seed, while Big 12 champion and No. 8 Utah State will receive a No. 4 seed and a first-round bye. was. In 2021, No. 12 Pitt, the ACC champion, would have earned a bye as the No. 4 seed despite being lower than the eight at-large teams.
But perhaps the most pressing issue that is certain to arise with the new 12-team slot is that the top 12 teams in the Power League will be displaced by the inclusion of lower-ranked G5 champions. The top 12 teams have only moved up three times in the last 10 years. We all planted a field.
In 2022, Tulane, ranked No. 16, was supposed to advance to the playoffs as the highest-ranking Group of Five champion. The 12th-seeded Green Wave had a chance to push out No. 12 Washington. In 2019, No. 15 Memphis, the Group of 5's highest-ranked champion, would have earned the bid over Notre Dame, Penn State and Utah.
In 2015, Navy was supposed to qualify for the Group of 5 as the 21st ranked team in the country. Last year, Liberty, ranked No. 23, would have played (Oregon beat that team 45-6 in the Fiesta Bowl, by the way).
A recent wave of restructuring has left the G5 a weakened sector. The most heavily funded programs, Houston, UCF and Cincinnati, are now in the Big 12. SMU is part of the ACC.
The selection committee will now face the real possibility that a G5 team, even its best champion, will not be ranked. The question came up during the bracket exercise, with Hancock confirming that the protocol is for the committee to choose the best G5 champion from the five league winners, something like a G5 ranking.
Imagine a Group of 5 champion that isn't ranked in the top 25 outbids 10 or more power conference programs that are ranked higher than it. It can happen. Sankey reminded reporters after the bracket exercise that this situation is the result of a format decision that gives automatic bids to the top five conference champions rather than the top four conference champions.
Want to complain more? The top four seeds all receive first-round byes and cannot host playoff games. Bowls will begin in the quarterfinal round, but there have been complaints from some fan bases and athletic directors who want to expand on-campus games to residence halls, at least for the time being. (No)
There are many complaints, complaints, criticisms, etc. Bottom line: A true multi-team, multi-round playoff is coming to college football. It's historic, unprecedented and exciting.
But please avoid the rematch!
