The first year of the expanded 12 team college football playoff format brought plenty of exciting features to the sport. For starters teams with two losses were still in the hunt making almost every game dramatic for most of the season. The extra drama kept everyone in the mix which gave fan bases every reason to stay engaged throughout the season.
When the College Football Playoff actually rolled around there were massive clear flaws with the system. The most obvious flaw was that the fact that the four highest ranked conference champions were locked into the Top 4 seeds in the Playoff.
The system should've rewarded the four best teams in the sport rather than trying to reward teams for winning their conference especially when, the 5 highest ranked Conference Champions were already guaranteed a bid into the Playoff. While the Conference Commissioners have debated expanding the Playoff field, this issue had come up several times and on Thursday, College Football finally got it right making the move to straight seeding.
CFP executives in a call today unanimously adopted a move to “straight seeding” for this year’s playoff, sources tell @Yahoo Sports.
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) May 22, 2025
Teams will be seeded directly on the rankings, 1 thru 12, eliminating the concept that designated the top 4 seeds for conference champs.
The decision was one that needed to happen as a team being clearly the 2nd best team in the Country but, being seeded 5th didn't make sense. If the format was in place for the first 12 team CFP, Penn State and Texas would've earned First Round byes while Arizona State would've fell to 11th and Boise State would've been ranked 9th.
The move now puts the priority on being the best team in the Country rather than being the best team in your conference. College Football fans should be elated with the new change as it should reslut in the fans getting better Non-Conference games. Teams in the Big 12 and ACC can no longer count on the First Round bye and will need to schedule SEC and Big 10 schools to bolster their resume.
The changes to the Playoff are far from finished but, this is a clear first step to finding the final format that works the best.