James Franklin addresses bias in College Football Playoff selection, need for formula

The College Football Playoff has come under the microscope in recent weeks for its selection process, and in particular bias that individuals may show. That’s a challenge that Penn State head coach James Franklin recently addressed, calling for a formula.

Prior to the Playoff was the BCS era, which used an unpopular formula to decide two teams to play for a national championship. That’s a system that Franklin thinks is worth returning to when it comes to selecting Playoff teams. A formula that should, hypothetically, come without human bias.

“It’s funny, because I think there’s all these complaints about the BCS,” James Franklin said. “But then we go to this, and I think it goes back to really my answer. The problem is, everybody voting and everybody involved in the process, whether you want to be biased or not, we all are biased, right?”

At the time, the BCS formula was highly unpopular and became a key reason for the shift to a selection committee and the Playoff system as a whole. Still, it appears this isn’t a perfect system either and changes are likely coming in the near future to both the model and selection process.

The current selection process sees a committee meet and use several different weighted metrics to rank teams. That includes strength of schedule, strength of record, head-to-head competition, comparative outcomes of common opponents, championships won, and availability of key players and coaches, among other things. Those factors are also not weighted, so different committee members may value some over others, changing as committee members change. That leads to some inconsistency in the selection process that can both fans and coaches.

“So I think in a lot of ways, you could make the argument a formula could be better. But we didn’t love the formula. So we went to this other system. But there’s a lot of challenges, right? You got East Coast people voting on this, and they haven’t watched enough of the West Coast games based on the time. All the different rankings that are out there. So, there’s just, in my mind, a formula makes the most sense,” Franklin said. “Because it takes the bias out that we all have. But I also think maybe there’s a way to kind of do both. And I guess you could make the argument they are doing both right now, because I think the committee uses some formulas to come up with it, which I think makes a ton of sense.”

The College Football Playoff is preparing for changes to straight seeding next season in the 12-team format. After that, expansion of the field is expected before immediate changes to the selection process.

“So, I think at the end of today, there’s not going to be a perfect system. But again, I don’t mean to beat a dead horse here. But I just feel like there’s never going to be a perfect system on the back end,” Franklin said. “So, let’s try to make it as perfect as we can on the front end, so at least everybody has the ability to compare an apple to an apple.”

Penn State made its first College Football Playoff in 2024 under James Franklin. They’ll look to make a second next season, regardless of the selection process.