The College Football Playoff committee has made yet another change to the sport’s process for determining the national champion. It involves how the 12 teams in the newly expanded format will be selected.
The CFP modified the participating teams from six conference champions down to five, with the spot moved from the sixth conference champion to an at-large among the next seven at-large teams in the committee’s rankings.
There is also a concrete tournament schedule set up. From the CFP’s press release,
Under the 12-team playoff format that begins this fall, the four highest-ranked conference champions will be seeded one through four and each will receive a first-round bye, while teams seeded five through 12 will play each other in the first round on the home field of the higher-ranked team. (The team ranked #5 will host #12; team #6 will meet team #11; team #7 will play team #10; and team #8 will meet #9.) The quarterfinals and semifinals will be played in the New Year’s Six bowl games, the national championship game will continue to be at a neutral site. No conference will qualify automatically and there will be no limit on the number of participants from a conference.
It’s a pretty big change from the 4-team format that has been used in the past. Michigan beat Alabama in the 2024 CFP National Championship.
