College football is expanding to a 12-team [autotag]College Football Playoff[/autotag] for the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
After decades of the polls deciding the national champion (1936-1991) and early attempts at creating a national championship game such as the Bowl Coalition (1992-1994) and the Bowl Alliance (1995-1997), the Bowl Championship Series was born. The [autotag]BCS[/autotag] lasted from 1998 to 2013, when the College Football Playoff was introduced and the four-team model stuck for a decade (2014-2023).
Now, the playoffs will feature 12 teams with five automatic bids for the five highest-ranked conference champions. The top four of those champions will get a first-round bye (likely the [autotag]SEC[/autotag], [autotag]Big Ten[/autotag], [autotag]ACC[/autotag] and [autotag]Big 12[/autotag] champs). The seven at-large teams and the fifth conference champion (probably coming from the [autotag]Group of Five[/autotag]) will be seeded 5 through 12, rounding out the field with the first round of games.
It’s yet to be seen how the playoff committee will balance teams with better records coming from easier conferences like the Big 12 and ACC against teams with worse records coming from harder conferences like the Big 10 and SEC. One college football analyst, however, believes the Oklahoma Sooners’ new league will be well-represented come December.
On3’s Andy Staples gave 10 of his predictions for the [autotag]2024 college football season[/autotag]. Among the most notable was that the SEC would get five of the 12 spots in the new expanded playoffs.
“It’s not apples to apples because you can’t just port Texas or Oklahoma playoff appearances to the SEC because of how the automatic bids work and because we don’t know if those teams would have had a different record playing in a different league, but seven teams that will be in the SEC in 2024 (Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, Missouri, LSU, Oklahoma) finished in the top 13 last season,” Staples said. “The No. 12 team is likely getting kicked for the highest-ranked Group of Five champ, but the power conferences are so big now that the champions of all four likely will finish in the top 11. That would keep anyone else from getting punted.”
Staples also backed up his prediction by touting the sheer competition that SEC teams will face every single week.
“The SEC’s schedule draw is the biggest reason for this prediction,” Staples said. “Alabama and Georgia got tougher conference schedules, but they’re also talented enough to handle them. Texas and Ole Miss appear to have CFP-caliber rosters and fairly manageable schedules. Missouri and Tennessee may not be perfect, but they’re going to be good and they fared well in the schedule draw. Oklahoma and LSU are Oklahoma and LSU; they’re almost always a threat to win double-digit games. That’s a lot of legitimate contenders, and it’s entirely reasonable that five-eighths of that group could finish in the top 11.”
Staples’ comments are felt by many in the new SEC footprint, hoping that the depth and competitive nature of the league will be rewarded.
For example, should a 9-3 SEC team with three close losses to playoff-caliber teams be left out in favor of a 10-2 ACC team that hasn’t played the same overall level of competition? That’s the answer Oklahoma and SEC fans are waiting for the committee to answer for the first time this winter.
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