College football's 12-team playoff bracket, explained: New rules and more to know about CFP's 2024 format | Sporting News

The College Football Playoff began in 2014 as the latest postseason format for college football.

It consisted of the top four teams squaring off in semifinal games, with each winner meeting in the national championship.

After 11 years of a four-team format, it was decided that the playoff field would be expanded to 12 teams.

The CFP committee was coming off a bad year where they and the process was heavily scrutinized with many people thinking they got last year's field wrong by leaving out an undefeated Florida State.

One of the points when defending the decision was that the situation wouldn't happen again seeing as the field was moving to 12 teams this year.

The first 2024 college football playoff rankings are set to be released on Tuesday, Nov.

5.

Here is everything you need to know about the playoffs and the new format.

NCAAF HQ: Live NCAAF scores | Updated NCAAF standings | Full NCAAF schedule College Football Playoff rules 2024 When trying to expand from four teams, it was tough to nail down how many more they would add.

Eight felt logical and 16 felt like too big of a jump.

The committee landed right in the middle at 12.

The field will be composed of the five best conference champions.

The seven other teams will be the seven-best remaining teams after the five conference champions are added to the field.

MORE: Why Big 12 teams are abandoning in-game communication system College Football Playoff dates 2024 The expansion of the college football playoff means going from three playoff games to 11.

The semifinals used to be played around New Year's with the national championship game coming a week or so later.

Now, the first round of playoff games will be included among the earlier bowl games.

The quarterfinals will be played around New Year's and the semifinals in the second week of January.

This pushes the national championship game later than it has ever been.

Game Date First round Dec.

20-21 Fiesta Bowl (Quarterfinals) Dec.

31 Sugar, Peach, Rose Bowls (Quarterfinals) Jan.

1 Orange Bowl (Semifinals) Jan.

9 Cotton Bowl (Semifinals) Jan.

10 National Championship Jan.

20 MORE: Why No.

4 Ohio State has fallen short of sky-high expectations to date How does the new 12-team playoff work? The new 12-team playoff will be a bracket-style tournament.

The top four seeds will get byes and head directly to the quarterfinals.

No.

5 will play No.

12, No.

6 will play No.

11 and so on, with the better seed hosting the game on their home field.

The quarterfinals and subsequent games are played at neutral sites.

The winner of the No.

8-No.

9 matchup will play the No.

1 seed, the winner of the No.

7-No.

10 game will play the No.

2 seed and so on.

The two semifinal matchups will be determined, with the winners meeting in the national championship.

College Football Playoff bracket 2024 https://collegefootballplayoff.com/documents/2024/5/31/StandardizedBracket_2024-25.pdf Updated CFP bracket predictions Rank Team Record 1.

Oregon 8-0 2.

BYU 8-0 3.

Miami 8-0 4.

Georgia 6-1 5.

Ohio State 6-1 6.

Tennessee 6-1 7.

Indiana 8-0 8.

Army 7-0 9.

Boise State 6-1 10.

Pittsburgh 7-0 11.

Notre Dame 7-1 12.

Texas 7-1 MORE: Updated NCAA Top 25 polls for Week 10 of the season CFP poll release schedule 2024 Date Time (ET) Tuesday, November 5 7 p.m.

Tuesday, November 12 8:30 p.m.

Tuesday, November 19 7 p.m.

Tuesday, November 26 8 p.m.

Tuesday, December 3 7 p.m.

Sunday, December 8 12 p.m.

History of the College Football Playoff From 1998-2013, the playoffs in college football were referred to as the Bowl Championship Series or BCS.

The top two teams in the country when the final rankings came out would meet in the BCS National Championship.

After years of snubs, it was decided that the playoff field would be expanded to four teams, which happened in 2014.

This process was in place for 10 years and rumblings grew that the field wasn't big enough.

The committee voted and decided it would expand to 12 teams for the 2024-25 season.

There have already been talks about further expansion in the next few years, but for now, it remains at 12.

Year National Champion 2023 Michigan 2022 Georgia 2021 Georgia 2020 Alabama 2019 LSU 2018 Clemson 2017 Alabama 2016 Clemson 2015 Alabama 2014 Ohio State.

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