Leaders of the College Football Playoff will gather in Las Colinas, Texas, this week for their annual spring meetings, where they will continue to discuss the playoff's future format and how to best determine the national champion in 2026 and beyond.
While no major decisions are expected, a sense of urgency is creeping in because the next iteration of the playoff must be cemented by Dec. 1. This fall will still feature a 12-team field determined by a selection committee that includes the five highest-ranked conference champions and the next seven highest-ranked teams.
If anything is adjusted this season, it would be how the teams are seeded, but that's a small part of much larger changes the group is considering. Based on reporting from conversations with sources involved in the process, here are some of the biggest questions facing the FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua this week.
What formats are under consideration?
The current 12-team model and another 14-team model that includes guaranteed spots for the Big Ten (four), SEC (four), ACC (two), Big 12 (two), Group of 5 (one) and one at-large spot (Notre Dame if it's ranked high enough) have gained the most publicity, but multiple sources have indicated that some commissioners would like the CFP to present other options this week. It's also possible other league leaders come to the table with ideas, as there is both private and public resistance to the idea of leagues having guaranteed spots to the postseason before the games are played.
One possibility, which could be viewed as a compromise, is having conferences earn automatic bids through their play each season. A model in which each Power 4 league can earn guaranteed spots through a combination of its teams' overall records -- and maybe even TV ratings, according to a source -- could be presented. The highest-ranked conferences would earn the most automatic bids.
The Big Ten and SEC, though, have the bulk of control over the future format -- a promise of power that was part of the last contract negotiation. There is some skepticism that any other ideas presented this week would be strong enough to win over Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey.
What's the deal with automatic qualifiers?
One reason administrators and coaches in the Big Ten and SEC favor automatic qualifiers is the possibility of play-in games and the interest they could create late in the season. If the SEC had four guaranteed playoff spots, for example, the conference championship game would feature two of them, and then the next two spots would be determined by matchups between the Nos. 3 and 6 teams, and the Nos. 4 and 5 teams.
There's also a belief that if teams earned their way to the playoff based on their league records, nonconference games would be less damaging to a team's overall résumé and playoff chances.
For example, if Ohio State went 9-3 during the regular season and -- gasp -- lost all three of its nonconference games, the Buckeyes could still be the Big Ten's top playoff team if they went undefeated in conference play and won the conference title game. This could encourage athletic directors to continue to schedule more blockbuster nonconference matchups without fear of early CFP elimination.
There is a concern, though, about the public perception (beyond the fan base) of what some have deemed an "invitational" style format. Should the 4-4-2-2-1-1 model be adopted, some have warned of political backlash, and caution that state senators could weigh in if their teams are excluded. It's something that has already happened, as lawmakers in Florida were irate when Florida State was excluded from the CFP following its undefeated season in 2023, and the same outrage was expressed by West Virginia politicians when WVU basketball was excluded from the NCAA men's basketball tournament this year.
Will the selection committee stay the same?
For this season, yes, but there is a desire to find a way to modernize it, or to at least have a more uniform strength of schedule metric that can be referenced by the CFP and the news outlets that cover college football, including ESPN, the TV rights holder.
While there doesn't seem to be any desire to return to the BCS computer ranking system, some have wondered whether there is a way to combine a stronger statistical formula to the human analysis to better justify some elements of the rankings.
Will the seeding system change for this fall?
Only if everyone unanimously agrees to it. Multiple sources have indicated everyone in the room is in favor, but not everyone is ready to vote in favor. Some want to tie this season into the future discussions, possibly as leverage.
"The one thing that could come out of this meeting for this fall is the seeding versus ranking question," CFP executive director Rich Clark told ESPN. "But it doesn't have to come out of this meeting in April. We actually have a little more time to work through that one. So it may not, and if not, we're still expecting it hopefully this summer."
This past fall, the four highest-ranked conference champions earned the top four seeds and a first-round bye. The preference is to use the selection committee's ranking for the seeding while still making room for the five highest-ranked conference champions.
In that model, the committee's top four teams would earn the top four seeds and first-round byes, regardless of whether they were conference champions. That would also open the door for Notre Dame, which can't win a conference title as an independent, to earn a bye as a top-four seed.
There's also a financial component to consider. The teams that benefited the most from the seeding system this past season were Mountain West Conference champion Boise State and Big 12 champ Arizona State, because each earned a top-four seed as conference champions. Under a new system in which the ranking determines the seeds, a team could win its conference title but still miss out on the $4 million payout that comes with an automatic bye to the quarterfinals (in addition to the $4 million all teams get for reaching the playoff) if it is not in the top four.
The commissioners could change it to a straight seeding model this year and keep it like that moving forward, even if there are automatic qualifiers or another format change. Regardless of how the teams are determined, they will still need to be seeded.
What's the timeline to answer these questions?
There's a self-imposed deadline of this summer, according to sources, and a mid-June meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, appears to be an opportune time to make the final call. The reality is that nobody wants to be dealing with this when the season starts -- and they need time to implement any changes. This will be their fourth in-person meeting in four months, and each time the commissioners have gotten more in-depth with the details.
"The commissioners are being very deliberate with this because they know that it has a huge impact on the future of college football," Clark said. "So they don't want to rush to any decisions. I know everybody wants to know what's going to happen. But I think everybody should appreciate the fact that they're being deliberate about this."