The College Football Playoff might look a little different next year

The first year of the 12-team playoff has been a relative success. While the first-round games weren't as close as some fans wanted, this season has been one of the most watched ever. ESPN reported a 56% increase in viewership from last year to this year and ABC's best year since 2009. However, there's one big complaint fans seem to have about the playoff format.

In the current format, the College Football Playoff committee guarantees the top four conference champions the top four seeds in the playoff. The effect that has is that Texas, who is ranked No. 3 in the CFP rankings, is the fifth seed in the bracket, and Boise State, No. 9 in the rankings, is the third seed in the bracket.

Action Network's Brett McMurphy reported Monday that a change might be coming to that part of the playoff's format.

There will be “in-depth discussions” about not guaranteeing conference champs the top 4 @CFBPlayoff seeds in 2025, sources said. Top 5 conference champs still would get in playoff but rankings would determine seeds, sources said. This would require unanimous approval by all stake…
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) December 30, 2024

In this scenario, five conference champions would still be guaranteed an automatic bid to the playoff, but the top four teams in the playoff would be the top four teams in the final rankings. This year, that would have meant Oregon, Georgia, Texas and Penn State would have received first round byes.

A change in this format would prevent something like this year's quarterfinal matchups occuring. No. 3 Boise State is underdogs to No. 6 Penn State by 11.5 points. No. 4 Arizona State is underdogs to No. 5 Texas by 12.5 points. Both the Broncos and Sun Devils belong in the College Football Playoff, however, at nine and 12 in the rankings, respectively, they should have played in the first round.

Here's what the first round of the 12-team playoff would have looked like this year if there were no guaranteed byes: Clemson at Notre Dame, Arizona State at Ohio State, SMU at Tennessee and Boise State at Indiana. We can play the 'what-if' game all we want, but those matchups seem like they'd provide an average margin of victory closer than 19.25, which is what we got in reality this year.

"We should be open to getting (the seeding) right regardless of what that means,” a commissioner said. “But protecting conference champions and securing a spot in the playoff is a must.”

The problem facing a change like this is that all parties -- conference commissioners, the College Football Playoff management and ESPN -- has to sign off on it. The trickiest hurdle to clear would be conference commissioners, who would likely want their conference champion to have the best shot at the quarterfinals and guaranteeing them a bye is the easiest way to make the quarters.

We still have a lot of time until potential negotiations over the format of the CFP begin, but let's hope the correct decision is made and the committee can seed the playoff 1-12 and not guarantee a quarterfinal spot to anyone.