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Joel Klatt Highlights Key Flaw in College Football Playoff’s New Seeding Model

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Jaron Spor | Last updated May 26, 2025 12:39 PM ET

The 2024 College Football Playoff introduced a 12-team format for the first time in history, moving away from the original four-team format that had been in place since the playoff began in 2014.

However, there were still some concerns regarding the new format, particularly how teams were seeded. Last season, the four highest-rated conference champions received a bye, even if they were not ranked in the top four. That meant the Boise State Broncos and the Arizona State Sun Devils secured top-four seeds despite being ranked No. 9 and No. 12, respectively.

This seeding process will change for the upcoming season. Teams will be ranked, and the four highest-rated conference champions will no longer automatically receive a bye. If this new system had been in place last season, the Texas Longhorns and the Penn State Nittany Lions would have received the byes that went to Boise State and Arizona State.

Texas and Penn State lost the SEC and Big Ten championship games, respectively, to the top two seeds, conference winners Georgia Bulldogs and Oregon Ducks.

Fox Sports college football analyst Joel Klatt expressed a significant concern about the new format on his podcast, "The Joel Klatt Show."

"I don't like the thought of devaluing a game that should be very important and should have some real meaning and consequence for the winner and the loser," Klatt said.

Klatt suggests that the playoff format should shift from a straight bracket to a seeding system to preserve the importance of the conference championship.

"What I would rather see is that we are not going to play a straight bracket," Klatt said. "Once we seed them, now we're going to play a straight seeding tournament rather than a bracket tournament."

Klatt explained that under this proposed system, after the first round of play, matchups in the next round would be determined by seeding rather than automatically assigning teams. For example, if this model were in place last year, the lowest remaining seed would face Oregon, the No. 1 seed.

Klatt believes this approach would encourage teams to perform well in their conference championship games, as a higher ranking would lead to potentially easier matchups. However, it remains uncertain whether this model will be adopted in the future.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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