Brian Kelly believes 'adjustment' to College Football Playoff will come in 2025

The College Football Playoff race isn’t set heading into confernece championship week, and those few teams on the bubble have been making their case to the selection committee before the final selections are made.

Debates and arguements over team’s strength of schedule, common opponents and which wins and losses should be considered in the war room won’t be settled until then. However, LSU head coach Brian Kelly provided some insight from a coaches perspective on what he believes should be considered in each ranking reveal.

“I went on record earlier in the season saying that this is where it’s going to be difficult this year,” Kelly told Paul Finebaum on Monday. “Because I don’t know that the walking orders of the committee are going to be quite right, because you’re going to have teams that are going to have tougher strength of schedules and have better football teams. They may get left out. More wins doesn’t mean that you’re a better football team.

“I think basketball kind of went through this, and they figured out strength of schedule is really the best indicator. That’s why they use an RPI. That’s why they use that and rely on it heavily to make decisions on who’s in the tournament and who’s not in the tournament. We see that every year. We always talk about some of the non-power teams winning 32 games or 28 games and not getting in — it’s because of the strength to schedule.”

That will be the case this year, and Kelly is sure that some teams won’t make it because of a third loss, or that they didn’t have one extra win compared to another team with a lesser schedule.

“And I think that that’s going to be the case this year,” Kelly continued. “… And I think it’s wrong, and I think there will be an adjustment, and I think that adjustment will take place next year.”

Whether or not change will actually come remains to be seen, but depending on who gets in, who is left out and what happens as the first-ever 12-team playoff pans out will be what forces the NCAA’s hand regarding how the playoff is structure perhaps paint a clearer picture of the qualifications it takes to make the field of 12 at the end of each season.