Pluses and minuses with the College Football Playoff's new 12-team, '5+7' model

Following months of delays, the College Football Playoff Board of Managers finally voted to tweak the 12-team format before the model’s debut season this fall, reducing the number of automatic qualifiers from six to five for the next two years.

The board approved the change unanimously, creating a new “5+7” model that features the five highest-ranked conference champions and seven at-large bids. The original “6+6” model had six auto bids for conference champs, but with the dissolution of the Pac-12, it no longer made sense. 

It took the committee a while to get to the right decision, but fortunately, they did. 

“It’s a merit-based system,” American Athletic Conference Commissioner Mike Aresco told the AP on Tuesday. 

“It basically confirms the spirit of the original 6+6, and that was done when you had five A5 conferences. To have a fifth (champion) is good, and it’s not a four-plus-one, which is good. It’s the best five.”

The model may be just a two-year experiment that looks dated as early as this week, with the power players in college football meeting about the future 2026 Playoff (and beyond) today. 

Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti is pushing for further playoff expansion to 16 teams. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey is in favor of either totally getting rid of AQs — or securing more auto-bids for the best conference in the sport. There are debates about money distribution, bowl ties and more, too. 

But we have the 12-team, “5+7” model for at least two years.

Here are some pluses and minuses on the new format:

The ACC is down bad right now but the conference can rest assured it won’t get left out of the CFP in the future. Florida State had to die, so the rest of the league could live. Or something like that. 

While one less auto bid probably means an additional spot for an SEC or Big Ten program, it also provides the ACC (and Big 12) with more opportunities, too. 

What if Clemson and FSU are both fringe Top 10 teams playing for the ACC Championship? In the 6+6 format, the loser likely gets squeezed out. Now they might make the field with the final spot. 

The conference’s path to winning the national title just improved, too. 

“Under the 12-team playoff format that begins this fall, the four highest-ranked conference champions will be seeded one through four and each will receive a first-round bye, while teams seeded five through 12 will play each other in the first round on the home field of the higher-ranked team,” the committee explained in a release. 

That means even if say FSU is an 11-2 conference champion, it would be ranked above a 12-1 Texas team that lost in the SEC title game. The Seminoles would also receive a bye in that scenario. 

That’s huge. 

Which leads me to…

The “5+7” format further incentivizes winning your conference championship game, but also might encourage some programs to gladly settle for the No. 3 spot in their league. 

Confused?

Well, the weight of winning a conference championship game just increased dramatically with the top four seeds receiving a first-round bye. In most years, you’re talking about the four remaining power conferences, but back in 2021, Cincinnati went undefeated and won the AAC and was ranked much higher than the ACC Champion Pitt Panthers. 

So that bye game — with an extra week to prepare, rest and recruit — would be incredibly invaluable.

The other side of the coin, though, mainly for teams in the loaded conferences in the SEC and Big Ten, is the loser of the conference title game might be screwed seeding-wise. 

Peak at any Way-Too-Early-Top 25 rankings and Georgia, Ohio State, Oregon and Texas are typically in the Top 4 in some order. 

What if the season plays out as such and they are the best four teams by the end of the regular season? They’d all be guaranteed a spot in the 12-team field, but with the first four seeds going to conference champs, a loss in the title could actually be worse than finishing No. 3 in the SEC or Big Ten. 

A loss wouldn’t eliminate a team’s chance to win a national title, but the immediate turnaround (playing Game No. 14 in the season by that point) would make the path a whole lot tougher. 

In the proposed hypothetical, a 10-2 Alabama team (or say Penn State) that finishes the year No. 3 in the SEC could actually benefit from not playing in Atlanta. 

They would make the dance, get to rest up during conference championship weekend and probably get a home game against a lesser foe in Round 1. That’s real valuable, too. 

More than winning the SEC Championship and getting a bye? Absolutely not. But losing in the title game — probably. 

The No. 5 seed might be the golden ticket to the Semifinals now. They get a Round 1 home game against the worst team in the field — likely the Group of 5 champion — and then they would play a neutral site game against the No. 4 seed — which is probably a pretty good Big 12 title team in many seasons. 

Not bad. 

Where does Notre Dame land in all this?

The Irish could finish the regular season ranked No. 1, but they would be ineligible for a top-four seed because they’re an Independent who won’t play for a conference championship game. 

That’s tough. 

But that’s also the price of Independence. That ACC lifeline is there waiting for them if the issue is that problematic. 

On the one hand, the program’s path to the playoff actually just became much easier in a 12-team field with an additional at-large bid. Win double-digit games and they’ll have a spot every time. 

However, the Irish’s odds of winning a championship actually got worse. At best, they can host a Round 1 game and play four times to win a national title. Is remaining independent worth that much?

The new format, especially if it becomes a template for 2026 and beyond, could be what finally spurs the program to release its death grip on its independent status.