The new format includes the six highest-ranked conference champions and six at-large teams.
The board, composed of 11 university presidents or chancellors from within the 10 major conferences plus Notre Dame, voted in a virtual meeting held Friday. It favored a model of a four-round playoff featuring the six conference champions ranked highest by the College Football Playoff selection committee, then six at-large teams with the highest rankings other than those conference champions.
The method would rid the annual selection process of some of its most aching omissions, including the odd-man-out conference winners from the Power Five who miss the four-team playoff, and the so-named Group of Five schools beneath the Power Five, whose best teams have struggled for playoff spots with oft-unbeaten records hampered by weaker schedules.
“Great day,” Mike Aresco, the commissioner of one of those Group of Five leagues, the American Athletic Conference, wrote in a text message, noting that “12-team, 6-6 is the model we wanted. Gives us access if we earn it.”Under the four-team concept across eight seasons, the ACC has missed out altogether just once , the Big Ten twice, the Big 12 four times and the Pac-12 six times out of eight. The SEC has reached all eight playoffs, including twice with two teams.
The new format is set to begin in 2026, once the current 12-year contract runs out, but allows another committee, the College Football Management Committee, to explore expansion for either the 2024 or 2025 seasons. That committee is composed of the 10 conference commissioners plus Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick.
Under the model the board of managers issued, the four top-ranked conference champions would receive a first-round bye. That will make for eight first-round games at campus sites in December, with the higher seed in each game serving as host. The quarterfinals and semifinals would take place at the sites of renowned bowl games, carrying those names, while the final would occur at a chosen neutral site, as happens now with the four-team format.
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