How to Improve the 12-Team Playoff

Seeding

The biggest problem that most fans have identified with the playoff field is how the teams were seeded and placed into the bracket. Guaranteed first-round byes and top four seeds for conference champions along with the provision that Notre Dame could receive no higher than a fifth seed resulted in a bracket that was unevenly weighted from top to bottom. Eliminating the first-round bye for conference champions would result in a more evenly weighted field, even if the Notre Dame provision was still included. Had this been in place for the 2024 version the matchups and seeding would have been as follows:

1^st Round Byes

#1-Oregon

#2-Georgia

#3-Texas

#4-Penn State

#5 Notre Dame vs #12 Clemson (winner plays #4 Penn State)

#6 Ohio State vs #11 Arizona State (winner plays #3 Texas)

#7 Tennessee vs #10 SMU (winner plays #2 Georgia)

#8 Indiana vs #9 Boise State (winner plays #1 Oregon)

Playing this bracket out using actual results from this year’s playoff and historical evidence would give us #5 Notre Dame winning against #4 Penn State, #6 Ohio State winning against #3 Texas, #2 Georgia winning against #7 Tennessee (Georgia has won eight in a row over the Volunteers), and #1 Oregon winning against #8 Indiana. Semifinals of #1 Oregon vs #5 Notre Dame and #2 Georgia vs #6 Ohio State likely results in the same championship game of #5 Notre Dame vs #6 Ohio State with the Buckeyes hoisting the trophy.

First and Second-Round Games on Campus

Holding the first-round games on campus was a stroke of genius on the part of the College Football Playoff committee. The environments in South Bend, Columbus, Happy Valley, and Austin were electric, now imagine the games the following week were in Eugene, Athens, Boise, and Tempe.

Not only would those environments be raucous, it would also give the teams that earned the bye a home-field advantage for their second-round games. It would also not require the fans of the teams that advance to the semifinals and championship game to travel any more than they would have in the four-team format. Having these games on campus would make the later season and championship games much more important.

Condensing the Playoff Timeline

Another popular comment regarding the 12-team playoff format is the total time from start to finish was too long. New Year’s Day has long been the culmination of the College Football Season, before the four-team playoff it marked the last game of the season for everyone. Even with the four-team playoff system, the season was only extended for one more week and generally didn’t have to compete with anything else.

Under the 12-team format the semifinal games were on January 8^th and 9^th and the championship game was January 20^th. Fans of non-competing teams lost interest and even the most hardcore football fan had moved on to either the NFL or other winter sports. Starting the season a week earlier would allow for the playoffs to continue directly after the conference championship games and wrap up the week after New Year’s Day. The old argument of not wanting to interfere with final exams is a moot point since Notre Dame and Indiana players were taking finals the morning of their playoff game with Indiana.

Eliminating the Playoff “Committee”

Prior to the creation of the four-team playoff, the participants in the BCS National Championship game were determined by a complex series of computer formulas that didn’t always produce the result that made the most sense. As a result, a 13-member committee was formed to oversee the teams selected and how the field would be seeded. In many ways, this is worse than the computer formulas as human biases and conflicts of interest have resulted in some questionable decisions over the years. Using a combination of computer indices will also consider the imbalances between conferences and schedules to produce the best field possible.

Figuring Out how the Conference Championship Games Fit

Conference championship games are cash cows for the bigger conferences and as such, will have a hard time letting them go to fit into the playoff structure. However as constituted, the conference championships only serve to muddy the waters and aren’t a big benefit to teams that are already in the field. Integrating the games into an expanded playoff as first-round games would serve to eliminate a conference’s first or second-place team right off the bat while the third or fourth-place team could get into the field by sitting at home which wouldn’t be a good solution.