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Halfway through Year 1 of the expanded College Football Playoff, there’s already discussion about shaking things up—including from the SEC commissioner.
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The College Football Playoff is preparing for the first semifinals of its newly expanded, 12-team era.
After the debut of first-round home games and quarterfinal matchups played as part of New Year’s Six bowl games, the CFP is returning to familiar territory, as its first 10 editions were played among only four teams.
The Big Ten has been the dominant force in the CFP this year. After beating out all other conferences with four Playoff bids, the Big Ten still has two teams remaining. Penn State is set to face Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl on Thursday, and Ohio State will take on Texas in the Cotton Bowl on Friday.
The SEC had the second-most teams in the CFP with three bids after Alabama was the first team left over, in favor of SMU. Texas, however, is the lone SEC school remaining, along with Notre Dame, which is Independent.
Now, with an all–Big Ten final a real possibility, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has started pushing for potential changes to the CFP’s structure next season. “I would hope there is interest,” Sankey told The Athletic while admitting he has “not had a lot of conversations yet about people’s interest in adapting.”
This season, the CFP selection committee awarded automatic bids to the five highest-ranked conference champions and the next seven highest-ranked teams. The four highest-ranked conference champions received first-round byes, even though Boise State was ranked No. 9 and Arizona State No. 12.
The CFP’s format is set for 2025 but not for 2026 and beyond. The CFP is governed by its management committee, consisting of 10 conference commissioners and Notre Dame’s athletic director, as well as a board of managers, comprising 11 university presidents and chancellors. Those leaders would have to approve any changes.
Seeding in the CFP has been a controversial issue, especially with all four top seeds losing in the quarterfinals after first-round byes. “We had looked at history, you never meant pulling seeds from outside the [top] 10 really into the top four in this format,” Sankey said. “And that’s now happened. Those are learning experiences, and that informs adaptation. And we’ve got a responsibility to have what I would consider is a competitive and fair format.”
Aside from format changes, expansion could be on the horizon, too, as growing to 14 teams has previously been discussed.
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The first-ever CFP quarterfinals averaged 16.9 million viewers on ESPN platforms—59% more than the 10.6 million first round—but less than the usual semifinal games before the playoff expansion.
Of the four quarterfinal games, the two most-watched were the Jan. 1 contests. Ohio State’s win over Oregon in the Rose Bowl averaged 21.1 million viewers—the most-watched non-NFL television broadcast since the last CFP championship. Last year’s Rose Bowl, a semifinal match-up between Michigan and Alabama, drew 27.2 million viewers.
The Peach Bowl, a double OT win for Texas over Arizona State, drew 17.3 million viewers on New Year’s Day. It’s the most-watched bowl game with a kick-off before 3 p.m. Eastern Time. The Sugar Bowl, which was delayed to the afternoon of Thursday, Jan. 2 following the deadly attack in New Orleans, averaged 15.8 million viewers in a game that saw Notre Dame defeat Georgia.
Penn State’s New Year’s Eve win over Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl was the least-watched of the three with 13.8 million viewers. While Boise State is not the biggest ratings draw, the viewership number further solidifies Dec. 31 as a relatively weak sports day during the holiday season.
The least-watched semifinals games in the CFP era came on Dec. 31—the 2015 Orange Bowl between Clemson and Oklahoma, which that drew 15.7 million viewers’; and the 2021 Cotton Bowl, which averaged 16.6 million. Semis games played on Dec. 28 (2019) and Dec. 29 (2018) had bigger audiences than games on New Year’s Eve.
Furthermore, this year’s NHL Winter Classic, which was moved to New Year’s Eve for the first time largely due to the expanded CFP, drew less than a million viewers, making it the least-watched iteration of the event.
It’s worth noting that semifinal games should be expected to draw more viewers than quarterfinal matchups, but there’s no clear comparison in the four-team CFP era. The expanded format pushes the CFP semis outside of the typical holiday season for the first time. But if the NFL playoffs are any indicator——audiences tend to grow deeper in the playoffs in January—the viewership should still grow into the final four of the CFP.
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The transfer portal has essentially created free agency at the collegiate level. The initial window closed days before the start of the College Football Playoff—and it came with record-breaking NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals.
Freshman Darian Mensah, the former Tulane signalcaller ranked as the No. 7 transfer quarterback by 247Sports, received a two-year, $8 million deal from Duke. His reported $4 million average annual salary makes him the unofficial highest-paid player in the history of college football, according to CBS Sports. The report also indicated that Washington State transfer QB John Mateer, the No. 1 overall player in the portal, received a deal “in a similar neighborhood” as Mensah from Oklahoma.
The deals are a continued sign of the rising market for players in college football, as NIL payouts for last year’s top transfer quarterbacks—like Miami’s Cam Ward—were reportedly worth less than half of the deals Mensah and Mateer received. Player pay could rise further depending on the House v. NCAA settlement that will trigger revenue sharing between schools and players.
Another story of the winter transfer portal is the success of three SEC schools that missed out on Year One of the expanded playoff format.
LSU was ranked as landing the No. 1 transfer class by 247Sports after securing 14 recruits, eight of whom are four-stars, the most of any school. Their group was highlighted by No. 2 overall player Patrick Payton, an edge rusher from Florida State.
Ole Miss and Auburn were ranked No. 3 and No. 4, respectively, with each bringing in six four-star recruits. The Rebels were the only team to secure two top-ten recruits (edge rusher Prince Umanmielen, offensive lineman Patrick Kutas), while the Tigers class was highlighted by Georgia Tech transfer wide receiver Eric Singleton Jr.
The strong recruiting classes could help bolster the conference after a disappointing showing in the CFP so far—with some believing the gap is closing between the perennial top conference in the nation and the rest of the field.
The roster shuffling is far from over as the portal will open again in the spring for ten days, starting on April 16.
A few significant players have yet to announce their commitments, including two in the top ten: wide receiver Zachariah Branch and offensive lineman Emmanuel Pregnon, both from USC. Branch is likely to come as a package deal with his brother, Zion, a three-star safety ranked No. 270 overall. The two are also known for being the first college football players to sign with Jordan Brand.
A former Fox Sports hairstylist alleged in a lawsuit that a network executive used “his position to sexually harass women,” as well as that Skip Bayless touched her inappropriately and offered to pay her $1.5 million for sex. Read through the allegations in a 43-page lawsuit, as reported on by A.J. Perez and Michael McCarthy.
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“I probably didn’t sleep for two days after that game.”
—Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers said to ESPN about his team’s loss to Washington at last year’s Sugar Bowl. Ewers and the Longhorns failed to score on a potential game-winning drive with 43 seconds left, denying the team its first college football championship game since 2009.
A year later, and in the new era of the CFP, Ewers has led Texas back to the semifinals and will face Ohio State, the school he transferred from in 2022. “Certainly, didn’t want to see him leave, but we knew he was going to be a special player,” Buckeyes coach Ryan Day said of Ewers ahead of their showdown on Jan. 10.
Do you believe the current CFP format is fair?
Friday’s result: Exactly half of respondents said they were more excited for the Ohio State–Texas CFP semifinal, while the other half said Notre Dame–Penn State.
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