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Heather Dinich, ESPN senior editor
When the College Football Playoff was introduced more than a decade ago and the sport’s championship expanded from two to four teams, even the system’s creators couldn’t answer some of the questions that arose – or had a lot of trouble trying.
What was the value of winning a conference title when two SEC teams could be in and two Power 5 conference champions were out? When do face-to-face results matter? And when are they fired? How to measure the strength of a team’s planning? And to what extent did the strength of a program derive from the perceived strength of a competitor’s own conference?
When the 12-team CFP is revealed this fall, it will once again be a learning curve for everyone: fans, coaches, players, media and the selection committee. The committee’s task — and its protocol — remain essentially unchanged, but an unprecedented 12-team field naturally raises new questions for the group tasked with ranking the nation’s best teams.
In the spirit of the new CFP format, which will guarantee playoff spots for the five highest-ranked conference champions, here are five questions for the committee.
1. Will strength of schedule ratings change with conference realignment?
Losing isn’t something top national title contenders are used to — but even some coaches expect that to change, and that could make things tricky in the committee meeting room.
The committee has historically rewarded teams that face tougher opponents, placing high regard on victories against the top 25 teams in the CFP. With the expansion of the Big Ten to 18 teams and the SEC to 16, some CFP contenders now have a tougher path to their own conference championship game. The rigorous schedules of the SEC and Big Ten are going to make it even more difficult for those respective leagues to produce undefeated or even one-loss conference champions.
According to ESPN Stats & Information, since 2014, 14 of the 20 teams that have appeared in the SEC Championship Game have suffered one or no losses. During the same period, 11 of the 20 Big Ten teams participating in the league championship game suffered one or no losses.
NOW?
According to ESPN’s preseason FPI, only three teams have at least a 10% chance of finishing the regular season undefeated (Oregon, Notre Dame and Georgia), and none have more than a 20% chance of getting a score of 12-0. The only other time during the CFP era that no team had a better than 20% chance of finishing undefeated was in 2016, and Alabama was the only Power 5 team to finish 12-0 that year.
What will it mean at Selection Central when teams in these leagues suffer multiple losses and are compared to contenders in the ACC and Big 12 – teams with better records but against lower-ranked opponents?
“Do I think there will be teams with multiple losses in the playoffs? Yes, that’s definitely the case,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “How do you tell the difference? I’ll leave that to the committee. That’s why we have the system that we have. … There’s going to be a debate about which football teams are excluded. Ultimately, everything the world has a chance to get out on the turf, play and earn the right in. Someone’s going to be left out when they probably shouldn’t… We had that with the four-team playoff. There were probably three times where I thought we were one of the top four teams but we didn’t win it on the field.”
2. How many SEC and Big Ten teams will fill the bracket?
Using last year’s final CFP rankings with conference realignment for 2024, the Big Ten and SEC would have combined for 10 of the 12 spots.
SEC champion Alabama would have been with Texas, Georgia, Mizzou and Ole Miss. Big Ten champion Michigan would have been joined by Washington (the 2023 Pac-12 champion), Ohio State, Oregon and Penn State.
There is no limit to the number of teams from a single conference that can qualify for the playoffs, but spots are guaranteed for the five highest-ranked conference champions. These will most likely be the ACC, Big Ten, SEC, Big 12 champions, and a Group of 5 winner. In 2023, those winners were Florida State (ACC), the Michigan (Big Ten), Alabama (SEC), Texas (Big 12, now in the SEC), and Liberty (non-Conference USA, the highest-ranked G5 winner).
How often will the ACC and Big 12 conference champions be their only representatives?
3. How difficult will it be to rank the No. 8 and No. 9 teams as the No. 1 team looms?
The four highest-ranked conference champions will get a first-round bye. Everyone else will play a first-round match on the campus of the higher seed. The winner of the match between No. 8 and No. 9 will face the best team in the country in the quarterfinals. The loser goes home. Is this something the committee will think about – consciously or unconsciously – when making their final rankings on selection day?
Keep in mind that these games will be played on December 20-21 this year, which could be very cold on some campuses, especially in the Big Ten. (According to Accuweather.com, Ann Arbor, Michigan, had a high of 38 degrees last December 20 and a low of 21 degrees.)
How much of an advantage could this be if they host a team from the South?
Last year, out of a field of 12 teams, Oregon would have hosted Mizzou. Autzen Stadium has a clear home field advantage due to its smaller size and location. The winner of that game would have faced No. 1 seed and Big Ten champion Michigan.
4. What will be the classification criteria for the first champion of the Group of 5?
Last year, the selection committee’s most controversial ranking outside of the top four was its decision to place undefeated Liberty at No. 23, which guaranteed the Flames a spot in the Fiesta Bowl. Liberty earned the coveted Group of 5 bid for a New Year’s Six bowl without beating a single Power 5 opponent. According to ESPN Stats & Info, the Flames had the easiest schedule in the country last year (No. 133 ) before the playoffs. Eight of Liberty’s 12 regular-season opponents finished with losing records. It was a decision that blatantly defied the committee’s typical respect for schedule strength and was inconsistent with its rationale in the rest of its Top 25.
Had the 12-team playoff existed in 2023, Liberty would have earned a spot in the field as the top-ranked Group of 5 champion, and the Flames would have edged out No. 12 Oklahoma for that spot. Was Liberty’s selection an anomaly last year? Or is going undefeated the committee’s new norm for the Group of 5, regardless of the strength of the schedule? If so, does that translate to the rest of their Top 25?
In the four-team playoff, even the top Group 5 champions faced a near-impossible standard to reach the CFP: an undefeated record that included wins against Power 5 opponents and teams ranked in the Top 25 of the CFP. In 2021, Cincinnati, then a member of the American Athletic Conference, was the only team to reach a CFP semifinal in the four-team playoff decade.
The criteria for reaching the 12-team field will be highly scrutinized due to the likelihood that the top-ranked Group of 5 conference champion will edge out a strong contender at 12th. Remember, these are not the top 12 teams on the committee. These are the five highest-ranked conference champions as well as the next seven highest-ranked teams. So, if this fifth champion is ranked outside the top 12, the unlucky 12th team will be snubbed to make room for them.
If the fifth champion is not ranked at all, the selection committee will rank the Group of 5 champions separately, then announce the top school as the highest ranked Group of 5 champion with the Top 25.
Liberty doesn’t face any Power 4 opponents yet. Will that matter?
5. How will the playoff path change for the independents?
It’s not just Notre Dame that will be impacted by the new format. Oregon State and Washington State will also be treated as independents this fall, as they no longer have a Pac-12 conference championship game to play.
If any of these schools qualify for the 12-team field, they cannot earn a first-round bye because they cannot finish among the four highest-ranked conference champions. They would play a first-round game and would need to win four straight games to win the national title.
In the past, not having a conference title game was a pro-con situation for the Irish. If they were already in the top four heading into selection day, the Irish didn’t have to risk losing and falling out. However, if they were in the bubble, there wouldn’t be another opportunity to impress the committee against a ranked opponent. Notre Dame had to sit and wait and hope for help while everyone else was competing.
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The Irish should be there more often if they finish with no more than one, or even two, losses, depending on their schedule, their results and the performance of others. There’s a lot less pressure to go undefeated, even without a conference title. However, they still need to beat marquee opponents, like Texas A&M, Florida State and USC, and avoid upsets against Marshall.
Oregon State’s best opportunity will be Sept. 14 against rival Oregon, as most of the Beavers’ opponents are Mountain West Conference teams thanks to a scheduling alliance. Washington State faces rivals Washington, Texas Tech and Oregon State. The two former Pac-12 teams should leave no doubt about their playoff potential against unranked opponents, as they may have limited opportunities for wins inside the CFP top 25.