College Football Playoff - What we're hearing about changes - ESPN

On Sunday, the eve of the College Football Playoff national championship game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and Notre Dame Fighting Irish, the decision-makers who have the ultimate authority over the playoff's format will hold their annual business meeting.

Only a portion of the 90 minutes is expected to be spent reviewing the inaugural 12-team model — its pros and cons, and the plethora of questions it raised about the sport's postseason.

Included in the topics that have already generated buzz among the FBS commissioners: Do the top four seeds need to be conference champions? Does the extra time off from a first-round bye put the higher seeds at a disadvantage? Is there a better way to measure strength of schedule for supersized conferences without divisions? What matters most to the 13 selection committee members, who serve three-year terms? Is a 14-team field better than 12 teams?

ESPN spoke with more than a dozen influential sources in and around the playoff to convey their feedback as we near the end of the sport's first run through the 12-team College Football Playoff.

Jump to a topic:
Can change happen next season?
Seeding
Coexisting with bowls
Conference title games
2026 and beyond

To make any changes for next season — including something seemingly as simple as seeding — every conference and Notre Dame must unanimously agree to it, leaving serious doubt among multiple sources with knowledge of the process that the 2025 playoff will look much different from what we've seen the past month.

But because the January meeting is so compressed, the FBS commissioners could schedule a separate virtual conversation next month for a more comprehensive review.

If the commissioners agree to revise something, it probably wouldn't