Inside the CFP’s Bold Move to Straight Seeding in 2025—What It Means for College Football’s Future

You’ve got to love the unpredictability of college football playoffs, right? This year, the folks in charge decided to scrap last season’s complicated 12-team format that handed top seeds—and cushy first-round byes—to conference champions. Instead, for 2025, everything’s going straight-up based on final rankings, with teams seeded 1 through 12. Honestly, it feels like a more straightforward and, dare I say, fair way to do things—especially after seeing all four bye teams from last year fall flat the minute they stepped onto the field. Crazy stuff, especially when you remember Ohio State, the No. 8 seed, blitzed their way to a championship win over Notre Dame. So buckle up: the new seeding approach could shake things up even more. Curious about all the details? LEARN MORE

Those four schools in 2024 were Big Ten champion and No. 1 Oregon and the Southeastern Conference champion and No. 2 Georgia along with No. 9 Boise State (Mountain West) and No. 12 Arizona State (Big 12).

As it turned out, all four of the teams that received byes last season lost their first playoff games.

No. 8 seed Ohio State won the national championship with a 34-23 win against No. 7 seed Notre Dame.

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College Football Playoff executives unanimously agreed Thursday to adopt a straight-seeding model for the 2025 season, Yahoo Sports reported.

Under the straight-seeding model, the No. 3 and 4 seeds would have gone to Texas (SEC) and Penn State (Big Ten), respectively.

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Last season’s controversial 12-team format gave the top four seeds — and the accompanying first-round byes — to the four highest-ranked conference champions.