College Football Playoff format for next season still in limbo as commissioners punt on making seeding changes
By: Ross Dellenger - Yahoo! SportsDALLAS — The format for this year’s College Football Playoff remains in limbo.
Perhaps, it can be solved with a familiar thing: money.
At a meeting here Tuesday, playoff executives explored changes to the 2025 postseason but came to no decision on a proposal from the Big Ten and SEC to alter the playoff seeding.
In interviews afterward, conference commissioners say they need more data before making a decision to move to a “straight seeding” model that would eliminate the automatic first-round byes assigned to the four highest-ranked conference champions — a shift that Big Ten and SEC leaders support but a move that requires unanimity from the CFP Management Committee (the 10 FBS conference commissioners and Notre Dame’s athletic director).
However, a financial compromise was discussed on Tuesday among the 11-member group, several people with knowledge of the talks told Yahoo Sports. In the current 12-team format, the top four seeds — and first-round byes — are reserved for the four highest-ranked conference champions. Each of those teams automatically earn $8 million as part of the CFP’s performance-based distribution model. They get $4 million for qualifying for the event and another $4 million for advancing to the quarterfinals.
Under discussion is the possibility of the four highest-ranked conference champions continuing to earn that additional revenue despite not receiving a top four seed and first-round bye.
Is it enough to sway the room to make the seeding change? Maybe, but there’s another piece to this puzzle. ACC commissioner Jim Phillips and Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark believe that alterations to the 2025 playoff are tethered to any potential changes in 2026.
The 2026 playoff begins a new six-year contract with ESPN where the SEC and Big Ten gain control over any format changes.
“You've got to look at it in totality,” Phillips said of the 2025 playoff format and the format in 2026-2031. “It’s one contract coming to an end and a new cycle. Those things have some linkage.”
Phillips and Yormark, as well as the Group of Six commissioners, benefit from the automatic byes for the four highest-ranked conference champions, and many of them have spoken publicly suggesting that, without a compromise, they would be unwilling to vote in favor of “straight seeding.”
That said, unanimity is not necessary starting in 2026. Can there be a compromise there too?
Yormark said changes in 2025 “set the tone” for changes in 2026 and beyond. “You cannot look at them in a bifurcated way,” he added.
During Tuesday’s meeting, committee members did broadly discuss a 14- or 16-team format that Big Ten and SEC leaders are exploring that would assign multiple automatic qualifiers to individual conferences — as many as four for themselves — starting in 2026.
The 14-team “4-4-2-2-1+1” format — most discussed among the leagues — would grant four automatic spots for the Big Ten and SEC, two for the Big 12 and ACC, one for the Group of Six, plus an at-large bid intended for Notre Dame if it finished high enough in the rankings. The reaction to the format, both last spring and last week, drew a visceral reaction from some within the college sports community.
Asked about that format Tuesday, Phillips believes that, as a “guardian of the game,” commissioners should be “mindful” of the greater good when determining a new format.
“For all of us, there’s been somebody before us and there will be somebody after us,” he said. “You have to serve your constituents, but you can’t be completely oblivious and not mindful of what’s good for college football and the fans and what you’re hearing from them.”
Any decision — or deep discussion — on format for 2026 and beyond is likely reserved for later this spring.
As for 2025 changes, committee members tasked the CFP staff with generating research and data so they can make an “informed” decision on any change, executive director Rich Clark said. “It’s important that we make these decisions for 2025 now, because they are going to impact what happens in 2026 and beyond,” he said, again linking the two.
Last week after a joint meeting of their athletic directors in New Orleans, the Big Ten and SEC announced that they both are in support of a “straight seeding” playoff format starting in 2025.
If that happened in this past year’s playoff, the top four seeds would have been No. 1 Oregon, No. 2 Georgia, No. 3 Texas and No. 4 Penn State. Arizona State, the No. 4 seed in the current format as Big 12 champions, would have been seeded 12th. Boise State, the No. 3 seed last year, would have been seeded No. 9.
The 8-9 game would have featured Boise State-Indiana, instead of Ohio State-Tennessee, for instance.
Such a change raises plenty of questions, including Notre Dame’s situation. The Irish, as an independent, is not eligible for a first-round bye in the current format. The school’s athletic director, Pete Bevacqua, has publicly said that the Irish should be eligible for a first-round bye if the seeding structure changes.
But money is the centerpiece of any 2025 format change.
Under the playoff’s current performance-based distribution model, each team earns $4 million for qualifying for the CFP, another $4 million for playing in the quarterfinals, another $6 million for advancing to the semifinals and $6 million more for competing in the title game.
Oregon, Georgia, Boise State and Arizona State earned the automatic $8 million payment last year. Under a “straight seeding” change, Oregon, Georgia, Penn State and Texas would have earned the $8 million.
Will the SEC and Big Ten agree to distribute the $8 million to the four highest-ranked conference champions even if they aren’t ranked high enough to get the byes?
Time will tell. Leaders are planning another meeting in March, where the CFP staff will present data presumably related to the financial proposal. “There’s going to be a financial model that goes with it,” Clark said.
But any revenue distribution change may be just a one-off. Under the new contract starting in 2026, there is no performance-based distribution model. Instead, each conference earns a base amount.
