The first 12-team College Football Playoff was a success

When Ohio State beat Notre Dame 34-23, the College Football Playoff wrapped up its biggest postseason ever, and despite the high amount of blowouts, the 12-team playoff was a success. A season ago, seven teams were vying for a spot in the playoff during conference championship week. This year, the number shot up to 15.

Additionally, the more teams that have a shot to make the playoff, the more meaningful the games will be played during the regular season. No more will a showdown between two Top-10, two-loss teams have no effect on the playoff. Television ratings proved that. 11 regular season games topped nine million viewers, the first round averaged 10.6 million, the quarterfinals 16.9 million and the semifinals 19.2 million.

In total, the non-Championship game ratings averaged 14.84 million viewers, higher than the average viewership of last year's New Year's Six bowl games of 13.5 million viewers. The 12-team playoff also has home games in the first round, providing fans with electric environments for an additional week.

The 12 team playoff is elite. See y’all next season.
— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) January 21, 2025

Fans will complain, and rightfully so, about the high amount of blowouts in this year's playoff -- Nine of the 11 games were decided by 10 or more points. However, if you look at the last four years of the four-team playoff, eight of those 12 games fall into that category. First-round games should become more competitive with the right tweaks, such as not guaranteeing a top-four seed to conference champions.

The new format still provided fans with speculation and controversy over the last team in, when SMU got the final at-large bid over Alabama. Additionally, the best team still won the National Championship. Despite enduring a heartbreaking upset in the final week of the regular season, Ohio State was clearly the best team in the country. They beat No. 1 Oregon, No. 3 Texas, No. 3 Penn State, No. 5 Notre Dame, No. 5 Indiana and No. 7 Tennessee. It would be impossible to say there was a better team this year.

We're still awaiting the TV ratings for Monday night's National Championship, but in the biggest year of College Football in a while and with two blue blood programs playing in the game, expect them to be high. The College Football season is over, and we'll sadly have to wait until late August for it to kick off again.