Hello 12-Team Playoff in 2024; Good-bye Rose Bowl Tradition

This season's bowl game in Pasadena will be the last one automatically matching Pac-12 and Big Ten

The 12-team College Football Playoff will officially begin in the 2024 season, which is good news for virtually everyone except those who appreciated the traditional Rose Bowl format.

The playoff's board of managers made the announcement Thursday that the expanded playoffs will start in 2024, apparently after the Rose Bowl agreed to alter its contracts and opted to be part of the 12-team format.

“Everyone realized that this change is in the best interest of college football and pulled together to make it happen,” CFP executive Bill Hancock said Thursday in a statement.

But it’s not in the best interest of Rose Bowl tradition. As a result of the expanded playoff, this season’s Rose Bowl will be the last one that matches a Pac-12 champion against a Big Ten champion (or the top available representative of the Pac-12 and Big Ten).

For Cal fans waiting for the Bears to get to the Rose Bowl for the first time since the 1958 season, they may have to wait for a long time, perhaps forever. They must hope Cal gets into the 12-team playoff some season, then hope for a series of playoff coincidences to get back to the postseason game in Pasadena.

Every year from the 1946 season to the 2000 season, a Pac-12 team (known as the PCC or AAWU or Pac-8 or Pac-10 over the years) played a Big Ten team (known as the Big Nine previously). 

Eight times since 2000, because of BCS and CFP rules, the Rose Bowl was not a Pac-12/Big Ten matchup, but eight of the past 11 Rose Bowls have featured a Pac-12 team against a Big Ten team. And that will be the case this season, when Ohio State is expected to face Washington in Pasadena if USC tops Utah in the Pac-12 championship game on Friday.

A Pac-12/Big Ten matchup in future Rose Bowls would be pure coincidence.

Here’s why:

Next season the Rose Bowl will be a site for one of the semifinal games of the four-team College Football Playoff.

The 12-team format kicks in the following season.

The Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton, Fiesta and Peach bowls will host the quarterfinal and semifinal games on a revolving basis in the 12-team playoff. Only if a Big Ten team and Pac-12 team meet in a quarterfinal or semifinal game that the Rose Bowl happens to be hosting will those conferences clash in Pasadena.

Theoretically, the Rose Bowl could host two postseason games -- one for the 12-team playoff and another held at some point after the regular season. That second Rose Bowl could match a Pac-12 team against a Big Ten team, but neither team would be a highly ranked team or a conference champion, so its importance would be similar to the Las Vegas Bowl or Holiday Bowl.

However, the 12-team format is good news for the Pac-12, which is almost guaranteed getting at least one team into the national-championship playoff starting in 2024. That, of course, assumes  there is a Pac-12 (or Pac-10) in 2024, because that will be the first season that USC and UCLA will be part of the Big Ten and not the Pac-12.

The expanded playoffs will give automatic berths to the six highest-ranked conference champions. The 10 FBS conferences are the so-called Power Five conferences (ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12) and the so-called Group of Five (Sun Belt, Mountain West, Mid-American, American Athletic, Conference-USA).

Even if the Pac-12 champ is the lowest ranked of the Power Five conference champs, it would still get a playoff berth as long as two of the other conference champs are not ranked higher than the Pac-12 winner. For example, if the 12-team format were in effect this season, Utah would earn a national-playoff berth if it were to win the Pac-12 title game, despite having three losses.

Here is how the 12 teams will be selected:

The six highest-ranked conference champions will get automatic berths. Then, the six highest-ranked teams that are not conference champions will also be part of the 12-team playoff.

The top four seeds, based on rankings, will get byes in the first round.

First-round games will be played at the home venue of the higher seeds, i.e., teams seeded five through eight. Those first-round games will match the highest-ranked team against the lowest ranked remaining team: No. 5 would host No. 12, No. 6 would host No. 11, No. 7 would host No. 10 and No. 8 would host No. 9.

The Rose Bowl will host a quarterfinal game in 2024, and but, as you can see, the odds are against that game matching a Pac-12 team against a Big Ten team.

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Cover photo by Adam Cairns, Columbus Dispatch, USA TODAY NETWORK

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