Joel Klatt questions how College Football Playoff seeding is decided

When he takes a look at it, Joel Klatt isn’t much of a fan of this expanded format for the College Football Playoff.

Klatt gave some opinions on how the playoff presently looks during his show this week.

“I look at this bracket. We get the rankings, we get to talk about them, we get to start to see the playoff. And then you look at the bracket and I’m immediately struck by a few things,” Klatt said.

Klatt’s main point was the known one regarding the compared paths for the No. 1 seed and No. 5 seeds in the CFP. He sees no reason why their two paths should be so unequal as far as level of competition, especially with how it currently is projecting for the teams in this year’s field.

“The number one thing I look at is would you rather have the No. 1 seed or the (No. 5) seed? Which is better?” Klatt asked. “If you’re the No. 1 seed, yes, you get a bye and you might just say to me, ‘Like, Joel, I would absolutely rather have a bye’. If that’s your argument and position then that’s great, then that’s great. However, the way that it is currently – and I know this will change. But, currently, Georgia would host Tennessee in the eight-nine game. The winner would play Oregon, who’s the No. 1 seed. So Oregon would get a bye and then presumably play a team like…Georgia.”

“Let’s just say you lose the Big Ten Championship and you’re the five seed – like Ohio State is positioned to be right now? You don’t get the bye but you do get a week off before the playoff starts so you kind of get a bye. Then you would play Arizona State in The Shoe. You would win that game. Then you would go to a neutral site and you would play Boise State in the quarterfinal,” explained Klatt. “So, would you rather play Arizona State and Boise State two games or Georgia one game? I think that’s an obvious answer.”

However, Klatt says it’s easy to explain how something like that could happen considering who made this version of the playoff.

“Just remember, the exact same people that made the BCS made the four-team playoff and now made this playoff. They make massive errors every time they give something new,” Klatt said. “I get frustrated with the people that have made this. They’ve made a ton of mistakes. They made a mistake with the calendar. They’ve made a mistake in terms of format here.”

So, what does Klatt suggest for the future of the College Football Playoff? For one, byes, but only for the top-two teams in what would be a 14-team field. For two, he thinks the committee should re-seed the remaining at-larges going into the quarterfinals in order to better balance out and reward the highest seeds.

“A big thing that people argue about is this importance of the regular season. I’m one of them. I think the importance of the regular season should be there. There’s ways where you can incentivize the regular season, like byes,” said Klatt. “I’m a proponent of keeping the playoff at a number where we have byes. I think there should be two. I think there should be a 14-team playoff, not a 12-team playoff. But I digress – mainly because I think we only need two byes. If you’re trying to reward the regular season, and you’re telling me that Oregon has a chance to go undefeated with two wins over Ohio State, and their reward is their first playoff game is against Georgia? While the team that they beat twice in Ohio State would get to go and play Arizona State and Boise State for a trip to go to the College Football semifinals? That’s not a good format. That’s not a good format – at all. It’s totally uneven. So that would probably need to change.”

“I personally believe that we should re-seed teams after the first round…That’s the only way that you benefit if you’re one of those teams to win (their conference championship game) because I’m telling you that the path to the semi is actually better for the five seed,” Klatt continued. “If you’re going to just put four conference champions for the first four seeds and byes then you’ve got to reward the No. 1 seed and (No. 2) seed specifically because those two teams are likely to be a lot better than the three seed and the four seed. You do that by re-organizing after the first round. You re-seed. It’s just not that hard and you should absolutely do it.”

We’ll likely see a new iteration of the playoff in the future, if not the near one once this first one is over and won this season. That still doesn’t excuse the issues with this one to Klatt, though, as he would like to see better for the CFP.

“The question has to be asked. Like, is this playoff format any good?” Klatt thought. “I’m just here to tell you that it’s not.”

“The format does need to change. There needs to be tweaks,” said Klatt. “Little tweaks to this would make it a lot better. But I wasn’t in the room unfortunately so we’re not going to get to make those tweaks anytime soon.”