After just one season of the 12-team playoff format, the College Football Playoff Management Committee has tweaked the way the tournament will run.
Now, instead of the top four conference champions receiving the coveted first-round bye, the top four ranked teams per the CFP’s final poll will be granted the automatic berths into the quarterfinals.
It’s a change that many were calling for after last year’s playoffs in which all four bye-week teams got bounced immediately, several in blowout fashion. The straight-seeding format should prevent a similar thing from happening again… or at least make it more difficult. How, though, will the revamped model impact conferences moving forward and, specifically the Pac-12?
The Pac-12 right now does not exist in the eyes of the CFP selection committee. With just two teams… Oregon State and Washington State… the conference does not meet the membership requirement of eight to meet the requirements for an automatic bid for its champion. Next year, though, that looks as though it will change with the additions of Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State. While that only puts the total membership at seven, it is expected that the league will add one more program before the start of the new college football year on July 1, 2026. Assuming that happens, the new CFP format will suddenly mean a lot more to what many have referred to over the decades as the Conference of Champions.
First and foremost, the top-five ranked conference champions from around the country will be guaranteed a spot in the tournament. The league is more likely to at least have a seat at the table beginning next year.
In 2026’s Pac-12, the favorite to win the conference will likely be Boise State, who was the G5’s lone representative in the tournament last year. The Broncos, though, played as the #3 seed after winning the Mountain West with a 12-1 overall record. That mark was good enough to get them the bye and would likely be good enough to guarantee them one of those five conference champion spots. Under the new format, however, it would not have been enough for the bye. Boise State finished at #9 in the final rankings released after conference championship weekend; well outside the Top four.
Another team that stole a bye week was Arizona State. The Sun Devils went 11-2 en route to their Big 12 championship, but checked in at No. 12 in the national rankings. In spite of that, they sat idle in the opening round of the playoffs ahead of seven teams that had a better ranking. Of those seven teams was a Texas squad that knocked them out in the quarterfinals.
All of this means that that the Pac-12 champion in 2026 and beyond cannot rely on conference title status alone to snag the week off like Boise State and Arizona State did a year ago. In all likelihood, the league’s winner will need an unblemished record to even be considered against fellow top teams as the strength-of-schedule nod would probably sway towards their Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC counterparts in that conversation.
To put it simply, the road got a little tougher. That being said, it will at the very least, be attainable…something the league cannot say right now.
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