The College Football Playoff officially revealed its four-team field on Sunday afternoon, with the Georgia Bulldogs, Michigan Wolverines, TCU Horned Frogs, and Ohio State Buckeyes all earning the right to play for a national title. But starting in the 2024 season, it will no longer be a four-team field as the playoff is expanding to a 12-team field.
With the upcoming playoff expansion, college football reporter Ross Dellenger took a look at what this year’s field would look like if the CFP held a 12-team format this season.
In this model, Utah, Clemson, Alabama, Tennessee, Kansas State, USC, Penn State, and Tulane would also make the field in addition to this year’s teams.
Using the final rankings, here's how an expanded playoff would look via the adopted format that’ll begin in 2024:
Reminders:
(1) 6 highest-ranked champs get AQs
(2) next 6 highest-ranked teams get At-Larges
(3) byes to top 4 conference champs
(4) 1st round at better seed pic.twitter.com/tZCAPH9kme— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) December 4, 2022
“Using the final rankings, here’s how an expanded playoff would look via the adopted format that’ll begin in 2024:
Reminders:
(1) 6 highest-ranked champs get AQs
(2) next 6 highest-ranked teams get At-Larges
(3) byes to top 4 conference champs
(4) 1st round at better seed,” Dellenger pointed out in his Tweet.
As Dellenger points out in subsequent Tweets, seeding would be much, much different in this format.
How important is seeding in the 12-team format?
– K-State finishes 1 sport behind Utah, so the Wildcats not only miss on a 1st-round bye but must play on the road (at UT).
(There are 3 at-large teams ranked above the third-best conference champ, which will likely be an outlier)
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) December 4, 2022
“Based on the final rankings, these would be the at-large teams on the bubble of an expanded 12-team CFP: USC*, Penn State*, Washington, Florida State, Oregon State, Oregon* in the field,” Dellenger said. “How important is seeding in the 12-team format? K-State finishes 1 sport behind Utah, so the Wildcats not only miss on a 1st-round bye but must play on the road (at UT). (There are 3 at-large teams ranked above the third-best conference champ, which will likely be an outlier).”
It will certainly be quite a change from the four-team playoff in just a couple of years.
