A unanimous vote by the 11-member CFP Management Committee, made up of all 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua, would be necessary for any changes to the playoff system for the upcoming 2025 season that is the final year of the current CFP contract.
“There’s a lot of factors in this decision, so that’s why it’s taken a little bit longer to do this,” said Rich Clark, executive director of the CFP. “But it doesn’t come down to one single factor. They’re really trying to look at it wholistically and make a good decision on this because it’s going to set the tone for what happens down the road too.”
While any changes made for 2025 are not necessarily tied to what happens next, that could be part of the discussions. The Southeastern Conference and Big Ten will have more control of what happens in the next contract that runs from 2026-31.
Clark, without giving specifics, said the management committee asked for some additional information from the CFP staff. The committee had previously met Feb. 25, and is next scheduled to meet as part of an annual CFP meeting in three weeks.
“There’s not a hard deadline on that, but we want to get to that obviously so we can start setting expectations and thinking about the next season,” Clark said about the format. “But we also don’t want to rush to a decision because it’s an important one.”
Big Ten champion Oregon and SEC winner Georgia had the top two seeds last season, coinciding with them being 1-2 in the CFP’s final rankings. But ninth-ranked Mountain West champion Boise State got the No. 3 seed, and 12th-ranked Big 12 champion Arizona State got the fourth seed.
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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football