A Game-Changer: Understanding the 12-Team College Football Playoff Expansion

Ohio State ended the regular season with a humbling loss to the defending national champion, but it was a different deal once the playoffs began.

Let’s take a closer look at the College Football Playoff format.

Breaking Down The College Football Playoff History

Who Gets Into The College Football Playoffs?

The winners of the five highest-ranked conferences earn spots in the 12-team College Football Playoffs, with the top four conference champions getting a bye into the quarterfinals.

The top teams in the Pac-12 went to the other power conferences, which meant that the champion from one of the Group of Five conferences would receive at least one of the five automatic bids.

That team was Mountain West champion Boise State. The Broncos not only made the field in 2024 but also earned the No. 3 seed. That means the Broncos were placed ahead of the champions from the Big 12 and the ACC.

When looking at the College Football Playoff guide, the other seven spots go to at-large teams. The belief was that the Big Ten and SEC would dominate in that area. Seven of the 12 teams came from those two conferences. If SMU had beaten Clemson in the ACC title game, there would have been eight with Alabama getting into the field.

CFP Moves From Four to 12 Teams

There will always be a team or teams on the outside looking in. However, one main reason for college football expansion was to keep conference champions in contention for a national title.

When the College Football Playoffs were limited to four teams, there were five power conference teams, so at least one of those conference champions would be left out. It would often be two champions from the power conferences left to wonder what else they could have done.

CFP expansion finally arrived for the 2014 season.

One thing that did not change during the move from four to 12 teams is the impact of the CFP committee. A 13-person committee meets to rank the most worthy teams and picks the field. Unlike some other previous formats, the national polls aren’t among the tools used by the committee members.

Do You Remember The First National Championship Game?

After there were co-champions in both 1990 and 1991, there was growing support for some sort of championship game in college football. It was no easy task with conferences tied into certain bowl games in an era before NCAA football playoff expansion.

While there was no playoff format, on Jan. 1, 1993, No. 2 Alabama defeated No. 1 Miami 34-13 to win the national title as part of the Bowl Coalition.

Florida State topped Nebraska 18-16 in the 1994 Orange Bowl to win the national championship, while the final Bowl Coalition saw Nebraska top Miami 24-17 in the 1995 Orange Bowl.

The Bowl Coalition gave way to the Bowl Alliance. One significant difference was that the champions from the power conferences would participate in the Bowl Alliance games. Under the Bowl Coalition format, the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions were obligated to play in the Rose Bowl.

Nebraska won two of the three titles in that format. In the other title game, Florida, out of the SEC, defeated ACC champion Florida State to win the title.

Looking Back At The Bowl Championship Series

Before the CFP came around, the Bowl Championship Series was the system in place from 1998 to 2013.

The No. 1 team topped the No. 2-ranked squad in the first four BCS championship games before Ohio State’s controversial overtime win over the defending national champion following the 2002 season.

The final BCS game was on Jan. 6, 2014, when Florida State defeated Auburn 34-31.

Will There Be More Expansion?

Before the start of the 2024 season, the decision-makers of the Big Ten and the SEC pushed to expand the playoff field to 14 teams. This move ensured more representation from those conferences in the College Football Playoffs.

The new College Football Playoff format resulted in Ohio State winning four games to capture the national title.

The top four seeds all lost in the quarterfinals after receiving a first-round bye, so perhaps there will be a call for more changes in the format to reward the top teams.

Who Were The Teams That Just Missed Making the CFP Playoffs

Alabama finished 11th in the final College Football Playoffs rankings. However, No. 12 Arizona State and No. 16 Clemson were guaranteed spots in the field as winners of the Big 12 and ACC championship games.

Miami squandered a chance to reach the College Football Playoffs by losing to unranked Georgia Tech and Syracuse teams.

Ole Miss and South Carolina were also SEC teams in contention for playoff spots.