Decision makers are ready to overhaul the College Football Playoff seeding process and get rid of first-round byes for conference champions in the 2026 season, according to CBS Sports.
Support for the so-called “straight seeding” model has been gaining momentum over the course of the offseason and was endorsed by leaders in the SEC and Big Ten when those two conferences held private talks, and more recently by ACC commissioner Jim Phillips.
Currently, the four highest-ranked conference champions earn the top four seeds and a first-round bye, but consensus is building to change the system.
That change revolves around simply using the selection committee’s rankings for the seeding and avoiding any confusing discrepancies between rankings and seedings going forward.
For example, this past season saw No. 9 ranked Boise State earn the No. 3 seed as Mountain West champion and for No. 12 ranked Arizona State to play as the No. 4 seed as Big 12 champion.
No. 3 ranked Texas and No. 4 ranked Penn State were both runners-up in the SEC and Big Ten, respectively, so could not be seeded higher than 5 and 6 because of the top four places being reserved for conference champion teams.
Any changes for the 2025 season will have to be passed by a unanimous vote from the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua.
But the requirement for unanimity goes away in 2026, and it is expected the SEC and Big Ten will use their newfound influence over the sport to sway the format in their favor in the future.
“I’m prepared to vote for seeding change,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in February.
“We’re in favor of going to a straight seeding, where there’s no difference between rankings and seeing like we had this year,” Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said. “We’re in support of that for next year.”
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