With some huge news recently breaking regarding the College Football Playoff format in 2025, people felt passionately one way or the other. It sparked a fair amount of outrage and applause from just about everyone on X, formerly known as Twitter, in the college football hemisphere.
Starting next year, the College Football Playoff will change to a straight seeding format. This means that the top four teams will get first-round byes, regardless of whether they won a conference championship or not. Conference Champions will still get auto-bids, and this will be the final year of a 12-team playoff, as 2026 will expand to 14 or 16 teams. So, how did people react to this?
Divided Fanbase Reacts to CFP Overhaul: Are Conference Titles Now Meaningless?
The 2025 CFB Playoff ditches priority for conference champs. The top 4 ranked teams get byes, and fans are split. Here is what straight seeding means for the top teams in the sport of college football.
Brett McMurphy, also known as America’s College Football Insider, took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to announce the big change. It went over as well as you might imagine. The big news in his post was the change of the CFB Playoff format. The big question that came out of this post was: Are our conference titles now meaningless?
Huge news: 2025 @CFBPlayoff changes to straight seeding. Top 4 seeds get 1st-round byes regardless if it won a conference title, sources said. Conference champs still get auto-bids but are seeded based on ranking. This will be final year of 12-team playoff w/2026 playoff…
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) May 22, 2025
Dan Orlovsky, a well-respected analyst, commented on the post, saying “The right thing to do.” However, his post has since been deleted due to the backlash it got.
Another user wrote, “Expanding? What a mess,” while others were a bit more harsh, “The only teams crying about this are the teams that lost too many games to matter.”
It’s understandable to see the frustration, especially the change when it comes to the Conference Championships. The top four seeds, regardless of if they win a conference championship are the ones getting the first-round byes, that part makes sense, but what doesn’t is the Conference Champions will now be seeded based on ranking.
In the first year of the 12-team College Football Playoff last season, the top four seeds in the bracket, which provided first-round byes, were reserved for the top-four Conference Champions. In 2024, that wound up being Oregon, which won the Big Ten, Georgia, which won the SEC, Boise State, which won the Mountain West, and Arizona State, which won the Big 12.
Those seeding incentives for winning a conference championship will no longer be. It’s almost like it doesn’t even matter now if you did win the conference championship or pull off an “upset” because the team with the better record still finishes on top in the new playoff format.
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To put that into perspective, Texas & Penn State would have received 1st-round byes; Boise State drops from No. 3 to No. 9 seed; Arizona State from No. 4 to No. 11 in 2024-25 had this format been implemented for this past January.
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