Editor’s note: This is part of a series of stories about innovation and change in college football throughout the 2023 season.
In the wake of the most controversial College Football Playoff decision in the decade-long history of the system, the common refrain is that the selection committee’s job will never be this difficult again. Next year the field will expand to 12 teams, with four byes reserved for the highest-ranked conference champions.
But what if the committee’s job is actually about to get more difficult? Sure, the group will never again need to wrestle with keeping out an undefeated Power 5 champion like it did with Florida State this year, but it will receive more spotlight and scrutiny on a larger number of decisions. And if you’ve paid any attention to how the group has ranked the rest of its top 25 over the last 10 years, there are many more questionable decisions in there. Picking the top four has typically been the easy part.
Starting in 2024, there will be real stakes to the ranking of conference champions (for the last bye), No. 5 vs. No. 6 (for the right to host the Group of 5’s highest-ranked champion, which in many years will be expected to land in the 12th seed), No. 8 vs. No. 9 (for the last first-round home game), No. 10 vs. No. 11 (for the last at-large spot) and the selection of the top Group of 5 champion.
These decisions may not be as consequential as in-or-out for the top four, but they will create even more heated debates.
“Twelve is going to be great, and we’re all looking forward to it, but there will be issues with 12,” outgoing CFP executive director Bill Hancock said Sunday. “People look for perfection, and there will be some teams that don’t quite make it in 12 who are going to be asking some serious questions. … That’s not going to be the panacea that some of us might think it might be. It’s going to be great, don’t get me wrong, but it won’t be perfect.”
Next year’s 12-team model is currently formatted for six automatic qualifying spots for conference champions plus six at-large spots, but the conference commissioners have recommended a move to a 5+7 format in light of the Pac-12’s collapse. It’s not clear when the CFP’s group of university presidents will vote on the change.
The committee’s makeup and criteria will remain the same in the 12-team model, except the members won’t be looking for the “four best” teams anymore. They’ll rank the top 25 the same way they always do, a CFP spokesperson said. For comparable teams, the committee will still consider championships won, head-to-head results, strength of schedule and common opponents, as listed under the committee’s protocols.
In the first 10 years of CFP history, most people didn’t pay too much attention down the rankings because of the nationwide focus on the top four. But to find the flaws elsewhere, you can start at the same spot this year.
If the shorthanded Seminoles weren’t good enough to finish ahead of Alabama for spot No. 4 without a healthy Jordan Travis at quarterback, why were they ahead of Georgia? If the committee continues to look for the teams most able to compete for a national championship, many people would take Georgia over the Travis-less Seminoles, too. Or was FSU’s ACC championship the difference? We didn’t get an explanation.
If the 12-team Playoff had started this year, getting the No. 5 seed instead of No. 6 would be the difference between hosting Liberty (12-seed) or hosting Ole Miss (11-seed). That’s a massive difference in difficulty of championship path, and Georgia fans would be furious about the inconsistency. But because this is the four-team era, it didn’t matter. FSU and Georgia will play each other in the Orange Bowl.
GO DEEPER
What would a 12-team College Football Playoff look like this season?
For the last decade, the committee’s ranking of the No. 5 and No. 6 teams made no difference. Next year, it could be the most consequential decision they have to make. Or maybe that honor goes to the 8 vs. 9 determination for home-field advantage in the first round.
A year ago, the 8-9 debate would’ve been between Tennessee and Kansas State, with the higher-ranked team hosting the other. The Vols had wins against Alabama and LSU, while K-State won the Big 12 and had wins against TCU and Oklahoma State. Should the conference championship weigh more, as the criteria says it should? That’s a hugely important debate that presumably the committee did not agonize over on championship Saturday last year, with the greater focus on whether the Wildcats had knocked TCU from the top four by edging the Horned Frogs out in the conference title game. Tennessee was ranked No. 8, Kansas State was No. 9, and it didn’t matter. Next year, it will.
The battle for the final at-large spot will be as hotly debated as anything else. This year, 10-2 Oklahoma finished ranked 12th, the first team out of the New Year’s Six, and the Sooners would’ve been the first team out of the CFP. They beat No. 3 Texas and lost to Kansas and Oklahoma State during the regular season. No. 9 Missouri, also 10-2, had zero top-20 wins but losses against top-15 teams Georgia and LSU. No. 10 Penn State lost to Michigan and Ohio State; its best wins were against Iowa and … Maryland? No. 11 Ole Miss beat LSU and lost to Alabama and Georgia. This, too, is a very difficult decision that got little attention this year outside of Norman and Oxford, with only a Peach Bowl trip on the line.
Another example: In Week 12, the committee ranked Iowa 16th, though the Hawkeyes were not ranked in the AP Poll at the time. Iowa, 8-2 at that point, had lost to Penn State and Minnesota and beaten nobody of note. Its CFP rankings position was a dramatic difference from the poll consensus. Next year, Iowa would reside in a key Playoff bubble position that would draw a lot of scrutiny. The following week, after scraping by Illinois 15-13, the Hawkeyes jumped from unranked to 20th in the AP poll, a rise that seemed like a clear reaction to the CFP rankings.
Then there’s the Group of 5 spot. This year, the decision came down to 13-0 Liberty, with a strength of schedule ranked 133rd out of 133 FBS teams (per ESPN), or 11-2 SMU, with two Power 5 losses. The teams were pretty close in most advanced metrics. Liberty ultimately got the spot because it had wins over above-.500 teams and “kept winning,” as CFP selection committee chair Boo Corrigan said. But why was that not enough to put Florida State at No. 4? Corrigan also said the season-ending injury to SMU quarterback Preston Stone wasn’t a factor in keeping SMU out. So why was it so openly discussed as a factor for FSU?
“I looked at the comments Boo Corrigan made and they made no sense to me,” AAC commissioner Mike Aresco told The Athletic. Aresco was particularly angry that Liberty wasn’t penalized for its strength of schedule when undefeated AAC teams in the past like UCF (2017, ’18) and Cincinnati (2020) were left far from the top four over their strength of schedule.
“It’s personal to me because I put up with it for 10 years with really outstanding teams,” he said.
These are the questions and debates the selection committee will face every single year moving forward. Next year, the Group of 5 decision will impact the national championship race.
Hancock is on his way out as executive director, and Air Force superintendent Lt. Gen. Richard Clark will take over the role. That will not change the way the process plays out. It has not yet been decided how to reveal teams on the weekly ESPN show, rankings or bracket first, because the top 12 teams in the rankings won’t always be the 12 teams in the CFP, nor will they be in the same seeding order. We also don’t know how the committee will approach or avoid the possibility of first-round rematches.
The committee had a difficult job this year. But this was an outlier. It typically has not been very hard to pick the four best teams. But starting in 2024, the committee will have a hard job every single year, and it will have to defend far more decisions in its rankings. It’s not going to be easier.
The national championship will be decided on the field more than ever before. But how we get there will still be determined by a group of people in a hotel boardroom, with even more spots to debate.
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