How a 12-Team College Football Playoff Affects Oregon

The proposed 12-team bracket would include the six highest-ranked conference champions and the six highest remaining teams. Would this give Oregon a better shot at returning to the CFP?

Many college football fans are close to getting what they’ve asked for for a long time: an expanded College Football Playoff format. The proposal was presented by a subcommittee last week to the CFP management committee, and the CFP board of managers authorized the management committee to begin a “summer review phase” of the proposal Tuesday.

The board of managers and management committee will not meet again to discuss the possible playoff expansion until Sept. 28, according to a report by ESPN Senior Writer Heather Dinich.

The idea would increase parity in the playoff participants, fan engagement, and certainly ratings. The four-team format has been in place for seven seasons and is under contract through 2025, but, if approved, the 12-team format could take over as early as the 2023 season, according to CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock.

Parity is definitely needed in the College Football Playoff — only 11 schools have qualified for the CFP in seven seasons, and four schools (Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma and Ohio State) have qualified at least 4 times. Only four schools have won a national championship in the last seven seasons (Alabama - 3; Clemson - 2; LSU - 1; Ohio State - 1).

Oregon (2015) and Washington (2017) are the only schools to have represented the Pac-12 in the College Football Playoff, and Oregon is the only Pac-12 team to win a playoff game, demolishing Florida State 59-20 in the 2015 Rose Bowl. 

In this proposal, the six highest-ranked conference champions would make the playoff, and the other six teams would be the six highest-ranked remaining teams according to the College Football Playoff selection committee. The four highest-ranked conference champions would be seeded one through four and earn a first-round bye.

Last year’s CFP would have looked like this with the 12-team format:

Dylan Reubenking

The 2020 Pac-12 champion Ducks finished the season as the No. 25 team in the final CFP rankings and would not have qualified for the playoff despite making it to a New Year’s Six Bowl.

Here’s the question that Ducks fans want to know: Would the 12-team playoff bracket give Oregon a better shot at making the College Football Playoff? 

Absolutely. But there's more to it. 

Oregon is expected to be ranked in the top 15 in the preseason rankings. With the four-team bracket, preseason rankings are absolutely crucial, and for contenders like Oregon, every game is a must-win in order to reach the playoff.

Oregon essentially would have to win out to even have a chance for the CFP up until a potential 12-team bracket system takes over. Since the Pac-12 usually doesn’t have as many strong teams as conferences like the Big Ten and SEC, Oregon’s resumé typically isn’t as flashy as others playoff contenders.

This year, the Ducks face Ohio State and would have a great chance of bolting into the top five of the rankings with a win in Columbus. Washington may be the only other ranked team that Oregon faces until a potential Pac-12 Championship Game appearance.

If the Ducks are indeed ranked outside of the top 10 to begin the season, their chances of making the playoff are significantly reduced. Only six of the 28 (21.4%) CFP teams in the format’s 7-year history were ranked outside of the top 10 in the AP Top 25 preseason poll.

12 of the 28 (42.9%) CFP teams were ranked in the top four in the AP Top 25 preseason poll. Oregon was ranked No. 3 in the 2014 preseason poll, and Washington was ranked No. 14.

With a 12-team playoff, the Ducks have a great chance of making the bracket, especially with the talent that Mario Cristobal and his staff have been bringing in the past few seasons. If the 12-team playoff format is approved, expect Oregon to be a perennial playoff team under Mario Cristobal.

The Ducks likely wouldn’t have to go undefeated or have one “great loss” to make it to the playoff anymore. A one-loss or two-loss Pac-12 championship team could very well place among the top six conference champions.

The new format will have the top four conference champions earning a bye, which will likely provoke the same conversations about bias toward “the same few schools” getting the top four seeds like Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma, and Ohio State. Those conversations would blow up if the final four teams in the bracket consisted of the aforementioned teams, as well as discussions about bias toward conferences like the Big Ten and SEC.

One big factor in the new playoff format is that a national championship run requires playing and winning several more pressure-filled games, causing concern about players’ durability and conditioning. A national champion would have to play 12 regular season games, a conference championship game, and three to four playoff games.

For a team like Oregon that is in the upper echelon of a conference not as equipped with playoff contenders as others in the Power Five, the competition from the Pac-12 regular season to the playoff competition would be quite the jump. It would be an even bigger jump for teams from the Group of Five conferences to win their conference and then face teams from the Power Five. But the potential for upsets would draw a lot of interest.

For Cristobal, the message to the team is the same: win the games that are in front of you and good things will come. His Ducks are on the verge of a return to the CFP even without the potential new format, but if the 12-team idea is passed and implemented in 2023, they would be in a great position to be one of the 12 playoff teams every year — which would make Oregon even more attractive for future recruits who want to compete for a national championship.

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