After Pac-12 Collapse, College Football Playoff Modifies Its 12-Team Qualifications

On Tuesday, the College Football Playoff announced it had finalized a new 5–7 format for the expanded 12-team format, which will begin this upcoming season. The top five-ranked conference championships will receive automatic bids, with the following seven top-ranked teams receiving at-large spots.

The CFP had initially settled on a 6–6 qualification system allowing six conference champions. The original idea was to allow each Power 5 conference champion to get a spot while guaranteeing at least one Group of 5 conference champion to increase the possibility of parity. 

However, that setup became unideal in the CFP’s eyes after the collapse of the Pac-12—now, there will be only four power conferences. 

Mark Keenum, president of Mississippi State and head of the CFP Board of Managers, called the change a “logical adjustment.”

The Pac-12’s remaining schools, Washington State and Oregon State, will now have only one path to quality for the CFP: an at-large bid. They’ve agreed to a football scheduling partnership to play games against Mountain West schools but have not formally joined the conference—so they can’t play in the Mountain West championship game.

The CFP still has several other details to iron out, including revenue distribution and a media rights contract.

Last week, The Athletic reported that ESPN and the CFP had all but agreed to a six-year, $7.8 billion extension to their current deal, though sources told Front Office Sports at the time that they were surprised to hear the news, and FOS was ultimately unable to confirm. Over the weekend, Yahoo Sports published news of an internal memo from MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher suggesting that no deal had been formally presented to the CFP to vote on.

CFP meetings will continue Tuesday and Wednesday.