College athletics, as a whole, are not known for speedy and efficient decision making at the highest levels.
So perhaps it is no surprise the future of the College Football Playoff—for both the 2025 season and beyond—remains in a bit of a holding pattern following three days of meetings last week for conference commissioners, television executives, bowl representatives and several others. There’s been lots of talk, to be sure, but few tangible measures of progress. In the end, the fourth in-person meeting in the first four months of the new year for the CFP’s governance structure ended much the same way the three others did prior: punting meaningful decisions on the postseason until next time.
In contrast to your favorite football coach’s belief, however, punting is not necessarily winning in this case. Soon, all the arguing and chattering about the playoff will need to actually go from taking straw polls to actual votes among key decision-makers.
The FBS commissioners (along with Notre Dame Fighting Irish athletic director Pete Bevacqua) charged with navigating the process have been attempting to reach a consensus and path forward on several separate, yet interrelated, issues regarding the CFP in recent months.
The first is a potential move toward a straight seeding of teams for this year’s playoff.
This would have significantly changed the matchups of the 2024 12-team playoff to use the only example available. It would have given byes to the quarterfinals for the third-seed Texas Longhorns and fourth-seed Penn State Nittany Lions while sending the Group of 5 champion Boise State Broncos to play a game at the Indiana Hoosiers instead of to the Fiesta Bowl that they played in under the current system. The Clemson Tigers, instead of traveling to Austin for their first-round game, would have played at the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and the Arizona State Sun Devils would have taken on the Ohio State Buckeyes in the Horseshoe instead of earning their Peach Bowl berth as the fourth highest-ranked conference champion.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten counterpart Tony Petitti are the two biggest proponents of the change in seeding—it benefits their teams most, after all—but there appears to be more of a consensus around the proposal than a few months ago. Ideally, the decision would have already been made, though there still remains enough time to get something done.
The Catch-22 of the situation, however, is unanimity is needed among the 11 interested parties on any change for 2025 and it has become very apparent that such leverage is being used by many leagues, including the structure of the CFP after ’26. That is when a new contract that gives the SEC and Big Ten even greater sway as a duopoly capable of making decisions on their own takes effect.
“At some point, somebody has to blink,” one FBS commissioner says.
In the short term, there’s also a question about money. Teams, and by effect conferences, receive $4 million for making the quarterfinals in addition to the $4 million they get for making the tournament. That resulted in a hefty $8 million figure for Arizona State and Boise State, which was equal to what the Big Ten champion Oregon Ducks and SEC winner Georgia Bulldogs took home—despite all four losing their initial CFP games.
A bonus check for $4 million has been discussed to keep those same payouts to the four highest-ranked conference champions, a compromise that could result in straight seeding happening to benefit overall matchups while also keeping some teams whole on the balance sheet. It could even work out nicely for some conference champions ranked between fifth and eight in the final standings if they hosted a home playoff game in addition to their fully allotted payout.
Still, any move on seeding has to be weighed against the far more consequential decision on the future format of the playoff.
As it stands, the Big Ten and SEC are capable of shaping the CFP as they see fit for 2026 and beyond based on the agreement reached last year that gives them the lion’s share of voting power. Petitti has been the chief advocate in pushing for a 14-team event that features an increased number of automatic qualifiers, including four each from the Big Ten/SEC, two for the Big 12 and ACC plus an at-large spot and a Group of 5 champion (dubbed the 4-4-2-2-1-1 model).
However, the inclusion of qualifiers for the conferences in that manner has received significant pushback. Support for moving beyond the current 12-team setup has picked up steam in recent months—including, crucially according to sources, broadcast partner ESPN—with 14 being the most likely number. A 16-team bracket hasn’t been fully ruled out, however.
Still, the manner teams make the field remains the thorniest issue. Some athletic directors have noted how much the decision will have an impact on future scheduling in college football, to say nothing of outside perception of leagues like the ACC and Big 12 if they are not only taking in less money as their Power 4 peers but have less access codified into the agreement. Guaranteed spots in the CFP will also play a large role in discussions next month at SEC spring meetings when it comes to weighing a move to go from eight conference games to nine.
Regardless of how the debate over format goes, there’s also the issue of the selection committee. The conference commissioners went through a mock selection exercise late last week in an effort to better familiarize themselves with the process they have been reexamining. While details are light, the general chatter has been about a renewed emphasis on strength of schedule playing a bigger role in the weekly rankings.
There are other things to sort out on a docket that seems to be growing. Conferences have been in a holding pattern when it comes to negotiating new bowl lineups (the current contracts run through the end of this upcoming season) until the new playoff format is finalized and there is also the expectation that the NCAA’s FBS Oversight Committee will reexamine the bowl game certification process further when they meet again in May and June.
The long-form contract with ESPN covering the future version of the CFP through 2031 also sits unsigned, though that is not out of the ordinary in the television industry at this stage.
There is a growing desire to have everything wrapped at some point this summer at the latest, particularly because the process of implementing the antitrust settlement is expected to take up much of the industry’s focus in July and August. That took center stage last week, as Judge Claudia Wilken’s order threatening to send the cases to trial if the defendants didn’t implement phased-in roster limits interrupted CFP meetings on Wednesday.
Perhaps it was an apt reminder: There is no shortage of things going on across college athletics right now, and the CFP is but one piece of the puzzle the various commissioners and administrators are tasked with figuring out.
Still, the clock is ticking and, at some point, decisions have to be made.
