Could a FCS-Style Playoff Setup Work for the CFP? Just A Minute

Almost no one seems happy with the 12-team College Football Playoff this year, so why not take a look at what's done on the FCS level?

2024-25 FCS playoff brackets, partial / NCAA

The initial games of the 12-team College Football Playoff were duds over the weekend. None of them were close, or competitive. Texas, seeded fifth, is now favored to win the whole thing. Two of the quarterfinal games have double-digit favorites in terms of points. The playoff is also exposing what was my biggest concern all along, player safety. Key players are getting beat up and hurt after playing so many games and it will definitely impact the championship.

At this point it already seems obvious that some big-time changes are necessary. The on-campus atmospheres were great for the first-round games, even if students were no longer in school, however t the automatic byes for conference champions clearly needs to go. Plus we all know it won't be long before the powers that be change the number of teams again.

While there is a growing sentiment to go down in size, say from 12 to eight, the naturally tendency, of course, is be bigger.

For example, the Football Championship Subdivision playoff goes back to the inaugural year of I-AA, 1978, when four teams played for the championship. In 1981, it grew to eight teams, and then 12 just a year later, 1982. It was expanded to 16 teams in 1986, 20 in 2010, and then 24 in 2013. Note that the FCS only plays a 10-game regular season and doesn't have conference championship games.

It still got us thinking, what if the FCS rules were used to determine the CFP brackets this season? We'll walk you through the process:

Step 1: The automatic bids

The FCS tournament includes each team that won a conference title, and at that level there are 10 of them. There are also 10 in the Football Bowl Subdivision, but the Pac-12 only had two teams this season so we're not giving it an automatic qualifier. Otherwise, the 2024-25 league champions: American Athletic: Army
Atlantic Coast: Clemson
Big 12: Arizona State
Big Ten: Oregon
Conference USA: Jacksonville State
Mid-American: Ohio
Mountain West: Boise State
Southeastern: Georgia
Sun Belt: Marshall

Step 2: The at-large bids

This is pretty easy, with the top 14 non-conference champion teams in the CFP rankings:
Texas
Penn State
Notre Dame
Ohio State
Tennessee
Indiana
SMU
Alabama
Miami
Ole Miss
South Carolina
BYU
Iowa State
Missouri
... and the team that would be in for the Pac-12, Illinois. There's the 24-team field.

Of note: Selection committee criteria

With there being so much talk about strength of schedule, here, per the NCAA, "the committee may consider comparative data of individual teams, including but not limited to:"

• Overall record
• Record against Division I opponents (an institution with fewer than six Division I wins may place that team in jeopardy of not being selected)
• Record against opponents from other AQ conferences
• Record against Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) opponents
• Head-to-head record
• Record against common opponents
• NCAA Simple Rating System (NCAA SRS) Data
• FCS Coaches Poll
• Input from regional advisory committees

Step 3: Seeding

The committee seeds the top eight teams, which all receive a first-round bye. We'll just use the final CFP rankings for our purposes. Note that being a conference champion is not a consideration so Notre Dame can secure a first-round bye with this setup. The format changed this year with the top 16 teams seeded, so we'll do that version at the end.
1. Oregon

2. Georgia

3. Texas

4. Penn State

5. Notre Dame

6. Ohio State

7. Tennessee

8. Indiana

Step 4: First-round games

The other 16 teams all play in the first round. Per FCS requirements they are "paired according to geographic proximity and then placed in the bracket according to geographic proximity to the top eight seeds." Also: "Teams cannot travel more than 400 miles via ground, and teams from the same conference that played each other during the regular season will not be paired for first-round games."
For our purposes, we'll try and abide by the 400-mile rule as much as possible but it's pretty much impossible. We'll start out west with:
Arizona State at SMU
BYU at Boise State
Here we run into our first major problem. The four most western schools are ranked 9. 10, 12 and 17. It's not ideal, but the Sun Devils have to start on the road. Moving east, we made it so the seven SEC schools are separated as much as possible.
Missouri at Iowa State
Army at Clemson
Illinois at Alabama
Jacksonville State at Miami
Marshall at Ole Miss
Ohio at South Carolina
Athens, Ohio to Columbia, S.C. is actually 442 miles. We can live with that.

Step 5: The brackets

All we have to do is connect the first-round pairings with the top sight seedings based on geography:

1] Oregon
BYU at Boise State

8] Indiana
Missouri at Iowa State

4] Penn State
Army at Clemson

5] Notre Dame
Illinois at Alabama

2] Georgia
Jacksonville State at Miami

7] Tennessee
Marshall at Ole Miss

3]Texas
Arizona State at SMU

6] Ohio State
Ohio at South Carolina

If the home teams all won, the second-round matchups per the CFP rankings would be 1 vs. 9, 8 vs.18, 4 vs. 16, 5 vs. 11, 2 vs. 12, 7 vs. 14, 3 vs. 10, and 15 vs. 6

The 16-seeded team format

As noted, the FCS playoff format changed this year with 16 teams seeded instead of eight, making geography a tougher challenge to meet. Here's how that version might look:

A 1] Oregon
Army at 16] Clemson

8] Indiana
BYU at 9] Boise State

4] Penn State
Illinois at 12] Arizona State

5] Notre Dame
Jacksonville State at 13] Miami

2] Georgia
Missouri at 10] SMU

7] Tennessee
Ohio at 15] South Carolina

3]Texas
Marshall at 11] Alabama

6] Ohio State
Iowa State at 14] Ole Miss

Take away the eight unseeded teams and there's your straight-up 16-team bracket.

Conclusions

Ask yourself, would this be better than what the CFP has now? With this, there are too many teams in the field that simply shouldn't be there. Also, there's even more wear and tear on the players. However, these models further show how ridiculous the automatic bye is for the top conference champions, and reinforces the notion that all conferences are not equal. If the first and second rounds could be played on campuses, these options are worthy of consideration.

See also The College Football Playoff Needs to Make Some Serious Changes: Just A Minute