How the new 12-team College Football Playoff will work

The 2024 college football season is nearly here, which means the first 12-team postseason in the sport’s history is just months away.

After a decade of two rounds and three games and years of talking about how best to expand, the College Football Playoff will officially include a dozen teams this year. More teams equals more games, a later national championship game and home playoff games for the first time in college football history.

Here’s what you need to know about the new playoff format ahead of the season.

Five conference champions get in

In an effort to ensure that conference title games will still carry weight, the top five conference champions in the College Football Playoff rankings are assured of a playoff spot.

With four power conferences (the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC) remaining following the death of the Pac-12 as we knew it, it’s safe to assume the champions of those leagues will be among the top five. That leaves one more spot for a Group of Five champion. A year ago, the top-ranked Group of Five conference champion was Liberty, and the Flames were rewarded with a blowout loss to Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl.

The top four conference champions will also receive the top four seeds and first-round byes no matter where they are in the final CFP rankings. A year ago, that would have been easy. Michigan, Washington, Texas and Alabama all won their conference titles. In 2022, No. 7 Clemson would have gotten the No. 4 seed in this format as No. 4 Ohio State, No. 5 Alabama and No. 6 Tennessee all failed to win their conference.

Seven at-large teams

With five conference champions guaranteed in the field, there’s room for seven wild-card teams. Those spots will go to the top seven teams in the rankings that did not win their conference titles.

Seed Nos. 5-8 will host first-round playoff games at their home stadiums. A year ago, No. 5 Florida State would have hosted No. 12 Liberty, while Georgia would have hosted Ole Miss, Ohio State would have hosed Penn State and Oregon would have hosted Missouri. With two of those hypothetical first-round games matching opponents from the same conference, it’s plausible that the CFP committee will tweak its rankings to avoid in-conference games in the first round.

Since Notre Dame is an independent, it cannot be seeded any higher than No. 5 in the CFP. The same applies to both Oregon State and Washington State, as they are the last two teams remaining in the Pac-12 and are playing a schedule filled with mostly Mountain West teams.

Playoff starts in December

The first playoff games will be held before a majority of bowls are played. The CFP begins on Friday, Dec. 20 with one game, and then three games will be held on Saturday, Dec. 21. That Saturday will be a huge day of football, with two NFL games also taking place because the NFL is playing additional games on Wednesday, Dec. 25.

ESPN has the TV rights to the College Football Playoff and has sublicensed two first-round games to TNT.

The final seven games are at neutral sites

The top four seeds will not have the chance to play at home as the final three rounds of the playoff are at neutral sites. The quarterfinals take place on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1; the Peach Bowl and Fiesta Bowl will be played on New Year’s Eve, and the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl will be on New Year’s Day. The top four teams will be assigned to the bowl sites “in consideration of historic bowl relationships, then in consideration of rankings.” Translated, that means the Big Ten champion is likely heading to the Rose Bowl and the SEC champion is likely heading to the Sugar Bowl.

The Cotton Bowl and Orange Bowl are the semifinal sites. The Orange Bowl semifinal is on Thursday, Jan. 9, while the Cotton Bowl is the following day on Jan. 10. There will then be more than a week between the semifinals and the title game. The national championship game is set for Jan. 20 in Atlanta, 11 days later than the national title game in 2024.