College Football

Any CFP tweaks for 2025 won't be hashed out until later this year

Published Jan. 20, 2025 12:52 p.m. ET

Any adjustments to the College Football Playoff for next season, including a potential tweak in the way byes are awarded, would have to take place later this year, probably in the spring, the leaders of the playoff said Sunday.

Conference commissioners and school presidents who operate the playoff met on the eve of the Ohio State-Notre Dame title game to discuss issues related to this season's kickoff of the 12-team playoff, and how to transition to the next TV contract, which begins in 2026.

What didn't come up was the 2025 season, where any tweaks would take unanimous approval from the commissioners.

Most likely in the "tweak" category would be changes in the way the teams are seeded. This year, the top four conference champions were guaranteed byes, which allowed Arizona State (Big 12) and Boise State (Mountain West) to leapfrog several teams ranked ahead of them.

Both lost their first games of the CFP.

"We're going to let the management committee and our CFP staff start these conversations," said Mark Keenum, the president of Mississippi State who chairs the CFP board of managers. "But we didn't get into any dialogue in the room about what-ifs. There was none of that discussion."

The CFP could likely implement a change in the way the tournament is seeded in less than a year. Other changes that could come into play when the six-year, $7.8 billion contract with ESPN goes into effect in 2026 would be more complex.

One most discussed would be expanding the field from 12 to 14 teams, and also redistributing the number of automatic bids. Currently, the top five conferences receive one each. Because of their size and wealth, the SEC and Big Ten are expected to have a bigger say in whatever comes next.

Tied in with those decisions could be the future of conference title games, which look more and more like an anachronism now that multiple teams from each conference have shots at the tournament.

That, then, could reopen discussion about Notre Dame's role in the CFP. Under terms of the next contract, the nation's top independent will receive $12 million for being part of the system. If nothing in the format changes, Notre Dame couldn't receive a first-round bye because it has no conference to win.

"Should (title games) be altered in some sort of material way, then I think we absolutely have to look at Notre Dame's ability to get a bye if we end up as one of the top four teams," Fighting Irish athletic director Pete Bevacqua said a day earlier.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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