Nearing the midpoint of the 2024-2025 college football season, it’s time to look ahead to the College Football Playoffs.
The playoffs for the first time ever will include a total of 12 teams, and the four highest-ranked teams will get first-round byes. For the last decade, the playoffs only included the four highest-ranked teams who had the opportunity to compete for the national championship.
Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan or Clemson almost always made the playoffs in the previous format.. In fact in the College Football Playoff era, there has not been a single season where at least two of those teams did not make the playoffs. This change in structure now allows for more teams to compete for the national championship and it gives college football fans more football to watch around the holidays.
The 12-team expansion has its pros and its cons. One positive is that it gives the team with the fifth seed a chance to play for the championship. contention. Also, schools’ star players will no longer sit out bowl games because a national championship is up for grabs.
One major con to the format is that it takes the importance out of winning during the regular season. It is safe to say at least two of six teams with two losses will make the playoffs annually. Another massive downside to the format is that teams that should not even be on the same field will end up playing each other, and it will result in scores like 65-7 that occurred in the national championship two years ago.
While it would be certainly nice to cheer on an underdog team like Southern Methodist University or Army if they were to make it, they would certainly have no chance based on talent alone against a team like Texas or Georgia. The final reason I disagree with the size of the playoffs is it takes away some of the importance of rivalry games such as Ohio State vs. Michigan. Usually, this game determines who goes on to the Big Ten Championship and then the playoff.
However, now with the 12-team format and disbanding of divisions within the Big Ten conference, at least in theory Ohio State and Michigan could play each other three times in a single season. This fact really ruins the importance of the “Game” and other rivalries across the sport. Now here are my predictions for the bracket:
- Georgia (SEC Champion) – 1 loss
- Ohio State (Big 10 Champion) – 1 loss
- Clemson (ACC Champion) – 1 loss
- Iowa State (Big 12 Champion) – Undefeated
- Notre Dame – 1 loss
- Oregon – 1 loss
- Miami – 1 loss
- Penn State – 0 losses
- Indiana – 1 loss
- Boise State – 1 loss
- Texas – 2 losses
- Texas A&M – 2 losses
Ohio State has the best roster by far, although their play and coaching in recent weeks have been questionable to say the least. The final four teams will come down to Oregon, Ohio State, Georgia and Notre Dame. Georgia will win its third national championship in four years.