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Everything to Know About How the 12-Team College Football Playoff Works
The College Football Playoff will triple in size in 2024. Here's a quick guide to how it all works.
The end of the 2024 college football season will rank among the most exciting in recent memory, because for the first time, the College Football Playoff (CFP) is expanding into a large-scale tournament. This season, the CFP field will jump from four teams to 12, giving three times as many schools the chance to compete for the NCAA's ultimate college football prize.
As it has in the past, the 13-member CFP committee will preside over the whole 12-team affair, set to launch just a few days before Christmas and culminate in a championship game scheduled for January 20, 2025. But with an expanded field comes an expanded set of rules for seeding, ranking, and more. How will it all work?
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Ahead of the return of Big Ten and Notre Dame Football to NBC and Peacock this season, let's take a closer look at what to expect from the newly expanded College Football Playoff.
How are teams selected for the 12-team College Football Playoff?
As it has in previous years, the CFP selection committee will meet, discuss and rank the teams, then release its weekly list of the Top 25 ranked schools in the FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) to determine which teams are ranked the highest.
This year the CFP rankings will roll out on November 5 and continue updating weekly throughout the rest of the season and through Conference Championship Week. While the ranking system has always been an important guide for the selection committee, this year it will take an even more important place, because it will help determine not just who the top teams are, but how each team is seeded in a somewhat staggered playoff system.
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The 12 teams for this season's Playoff will be selected from the top five highest-ranked conference champions, and the seven highest-ranked remaining teams after that. There are no limits on the number of teams that are allowed to compete in the bracket from each conference, which means a team could lose its conference championship game and, if ranked high enough, still get into the Playoff for a potential rematch with their conference opponent. It also means that rankings are set to matter more than ever.
How does seeding work for the 12-Team College Football Playoff?
The selection rules feature automatic Playoff bids for the five highest-ranked conference champions, not the automatic bids for the conference champions of the five biggest conferences, plus the next seven highest-ranked teams overall.
In the past, the Power 5 conferences (The Big Ten, the Big 12, the ACC, the SEC, and the now-greatly reduced PAC-12) were generally assumed to feature the best teams with the best chance of winning the Playoff, but that's not how the selection process works under the 12-team rules. If you win a conference championship, and you're in the Top 25, you have a shot at the Playoff. For example, if we assumed that the Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, and SEC champions all finish in the Top 15 (a reasonable guess), but the next highest-rated conference champion is, for example, Number 22, they still get a playoff bid.
The rest of the field, seven more teams, will be made up of the remaining seven highest-ranked teams according to the committee's Top 25, which will reward teams who've put in a good season even if they didn't necessarily close out as a conference champion. For instance, if the Big Ten championship is played between the third and fourth top-ranked teams, but the third-ranked team loses that game and drops to Number 6, they still get to enter the Playoff. And if there's a third team in the Big Ten who just missed the championship game but finished the year ranked fifth, they would make the Playoff, too.
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When it comes to seeding, the four highest-ranked conference champions will be seeded 1-4, and get to take the first round off as they watch the remaining eight teams compete for quarterfinal slots. The remaining eight teams, including the fifth highest-ranked conference champ, will be seeded 5-12 according to their rankings.
It's a system we'll all have to get used to, but if you pay attention during Conference Championship Weekend and then look at the Top 25 that drops the following week, you'll have a pretty easy time piecing the field together.
How does the bracket work for the 12-team College Football Playoff?
Once seeds are determined, the bracket is laid out like a standard seeded tournament bracket similar to what the NCAA does with college basketball. In the first round, the lowest-seeded eight teams will play, with the Number 5 seed playing Number 12, the Number 6 seed playing Number 11, and so on. Winners in each of the four matchups advance to the semifinals, where the top four seeds will be waiting.
In the semis, the winner of the 12 vs. 5 game will play the Number 4 seed, the winner of the 11 vs. 6 game will play Number 3, the 10 vs. 7 winner will play Number 2, and the 9 vs. 8 winner will play Number 1. Winners advance to the four team semifinals, and the winners in the semifinals will advance to the College Football Playoff Championship.
When Will the 2024 College Football Playoff Games Be Held?
The 2024 College Football Playoff will kick off earlier this year, with first-round games set for December 20 and 21. We'll then get a 10-day break for other assorted Bowl games, and then quarterfinals will be held New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Another break follows before the semifinals on January 9 and 10, and then the Championship Game on January 20. For more information, head over the the NCAA's breakdown of the system, including a guide using the 2023 season rankings as an example.
College football returns to NBC and Peacock when the defending national champion Michigan Wolverines take on the Fresno State Bulldogs at 7:30 p.m. ET on August 31, and be sure to stick around for the Big Ten and Notre Dame action all season long.
