The Ohio State Buckeyes defeated the Notre Dame Fighting Irish 34-23 on Jan. 20 in the College Football Playoff (CFP) National Championship, marking the ending of the 2024 college football season and the inaugural 12-team playoff bracket. The playoff’s new format, which had expanded the previous four-team bracket, has been the topic of much debate throughout the season, and for good reason. The criteria for making the playoffs has changed, leading many to question the system for awarding the first-round byes. But despite all the talk, one thing is clear to me: The 12-team bracket is the optimal CFP format.
Under the new setup, the five highest-ranked conference champions earn automatic bids to the playoffs, with the top four of those teams receiving first-round byes. The rest of the non-bye teams are seeded five through 12 based on their national ranking. Opponents of this arrangement say that it favors weaker, lower-ranked conference champions, allowing them to still qualify for the postseason ahead of others in the field. For instance, this year the Clemson Tigers qualified as the No. 12 seed despite finishing at No. 16 in the final rankings thanks to their win in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Championship. Critics of the new CFP format might also point to the fact that none of the five conference champions won a game in the CFP tournament this year as proof.
Personally, I do not buy into this argument. I believe winning conference championships proves that teams are battle-tested for the playoffs and teams should be rewarded for rising to the occasion in those important moments. Additionally, three of the five playoff games featuring conference champions this year easily could have gone the other way. No. 1 seeded Oregon Ducks lost to Ohio State but had beaten them earlier in the season, and No. 2 seeded Georgia Bulldogs lost to Notre Dame — partly because they were without Carson Beck, their starting quarterback of two years, due to injury. The Arizona State Sun Devils nearly beat the Texas Longhorns in a double-overtime thriller, clearly justifying their place in the bracket despite plenty of doubters.
Another benefit of the 12-team format is that fans can be confident the best teams are in the playoffs. Following the controversy in 2023 where some seemingly qualified teams, like the undefeated ACC champion Florida State Seminoles, were left out of the four-team playoff, with 12 teams making it every year, it is highly unlikely that a top-tier team will be left out again. Similarly, some power conferences, namely the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and Big 10, have argued for a playoff expansion — including a set number of guaranteed bids for their members — because of a skill gap between themselves and other conferences. It is clear from both the underwhelming performances of the supposedly almighty SEC in playoff games and this year’s bowl game slate that any proposed expansion to the bracket that includes quotas for certain conferences is baseless.
Despite the benefits of the 12-team format, there are still some glaring issues that need to be resolved in the future, many of which stem from a lack of consistency across the sport’s conferences. Penn State Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin touched on many of these issues in a press conference before his team’s semifinal game on Jan. 9. He argued that all college football teams should be in a conference, meaning Notre Dame would have to give up its cherished independent status, and that teams should play the same number of conference games. This seems like a logical fix to strengthen the validity of the rankings and a step toward making sure all teams have an equal playing field.
Another issue that needs to be addressed is the egregious concurrence of the winter transfer portal window and some of the first playoff games. This overlap means that players on playoff teams who are looking to transfer have to choose between preparing for those important games with their teams or searching for better career opportunities elsewhere. For example, Penn State backup quarterback Beau Pribula, who was utilized in the team’s offense in various situations, left the team seeking a transfer before their first-round matchup. This is a simple issue that the CFP committee can fix by changing the transfer window time frame to after the playoffs, so there is no reason this should still be a problem next year.
Another change I would like to see is the quarterfinal games being home games for the conference champions receiving first-round byes. Currently, the quarterfinal and semifinal games are played at neutral sites because they are both the traditional New Year’s Six games and playoff games. It is possible that as a newer college football fan, I do not appreciate the history of those games as much as some diehard fans. However, using this year’s Fiesta Bowl game as an example, why couldn’t they have still called it the Fiesta Bowl and played it at Boise State instead of in Arizona? Giving some non-powerhouse schools like Boise State the exciting opportunity to host a playoff game as a reward for winning their conference far outweighs the need to have these games at their traditional locations.
The CFP still needs work to ensure it remains fair for all teams and conferences, and there are opportunities available to increase the excitement surrounding these games, especially regarding the non-regulars that now have clearer paths to make the postseason. It is also impossible to create a system in which no team feels like they got snubbed. However, this current iteration of the bracket ensures all the best teams get the opportunity to compete and appropriately rewards conference champions, offering more entertainment for fans. As far as this current 12-team format goes, college football is on the brink of finding the sweet spot for the ideal playoff bracket.
