Around 3 PM EST on September 2, 2022, the College Football Playoff Board of Managers voted to unanimously approve an expansion to 12 schools being selected for the College Football Playoff. The Board is working with other parties involved in researching the possibility of speeding the process up to start earlier than 2026, but at the latest we will see the new formation for the 2026 College Football Season.
How does the new format work? The new format will obviously grow from four schools to 12 schools. There will be six automatic bids for the top six Conference Champions, this means the Power 5 plus the top Group of 5 schools will get automatic bids. Those schools will be seeded 1-4 based off their CFP Ranking at the end of the season for the first round byes. The remaining two conference champions and the final six at-large bid schools will ranked based off their CFP Ranking at the end of the season.
The top four seeds will get a first round bye, mean while the bottom eight seeds will play on campus of the higher seeded school in their respective matchup. The quarterfinals and semifinals will be at neutral site bowl game locations.
Below is a picture, provided by @CFBPlayoffEdits from Twitter, showing what last season would have looked like under the newly proposed format.
What does this mean for the rest of the bowl season? The bowl system will still be active, so any team with at minimum six wins will be eligible for other bowl game appearances.
I love the change, this new format gives us an NCAA Basketball Tournament feel. We will not only see the big dogs have their opportunity to dominate, as they have so far in the current CFP format, but we will also get a guaranteed Group of 5 school in each year. We also go from three games to 11 games, which feeds our craving for the great College Football product!
My Predictions for the 2022 season under the newly proposed format:
1- Alabama (c)
2- Ohio St (c)
3- Oklahoma (c)
4- USC (c)
5- Clemson (c)
6- Kentucky
7- UCF (c)
8- Georgia
9- Michigan
10- Texas A&M
11- Oklahoma St
12- Miami (FL)
Comments