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If you could redo the 2024 College Football Playoff with straight seeding instead of having the 4 highest-ranked conference champions earning first-round byes, there would be some significant differences.
Let’s back up a second. I fear that you, reader of this column, are assuming that I’m about to take away Ohio State’s national title or claim that the Buckeyes got a fortunate draw by having a seeding process so flawed that it was changed after 1 season of the 12-team Playoff. Nope. If you were to redo the 2024 Playoff with straight seedings, I believe that Ohio State is still your national champ. That team was on a warpath. I’m not sure there were 5 teams in the 21st century who could’ve stood between the Buckeyes and that title.
We had to get that out of the way.
But there were 4 teams (and 2 from the SEC) who got a raw deal for different reasons. That’s probably why there was such momentum to pull the plug on having those 4 highest-ranked conference champs earn byes instead of just having the 4 highest-ranked teams (regardless of conference affiliation) earn those byes.
Here’s what the field would’ve looked like:
These are the 4 teams who will always look back at 2024 with frustration that we didn’t have the straight seeding model until 2025:
Oregon
There’s really no denying that the Ducks got put in a brutal spot by having to face Ohio State in the quarterfinals. In every previous iteration of the Playoff/BCS era, a 13-0 Big Ten champ as the lone FBS unbeaten heading into the postseason would’ve at least gotten a trip to the semifinals. Those days are gone, but Oregon only drew Ohio State because the Buckeyes got jumped by Boise State and Arizona State, both of whom won their respective conferences.
In the straight seeding model, Oregon still would’ve gotten the bye, so that part is unchanged. The difference is that it would’ve drawn the winner of Boise State and Indiana. While you could certainly point to the irony of another potential rematch for Oregon — Boise State played a thrilling game in Eugene in Week 2 — it still would’ve likely had the Ducks as a double-digit favorite against either team. The Ducks would’ve had the benefit of the full Ashton Jeanty experience in the first matchup, and Indiana’s performances against Ohio State and Notre Dame suggested that Oregon would’ve been a heavy favorite to take care of business at the Rose Bowl.
The Ducks would’ve had a path to the national championship game that would’ve included the Boise State/Indiana winner and likely the Notre Dame/Penn State winner. Ohio State would’ve been on the other side of the bracket, which means we could’ve still gotten that Oregon-Ohio State rematch, but in the national championship instead of the quarterfinals.
If you don’t think that matters, remember that Oregon hasn’t won a Playoff game since 2014. Go ask Notre Dame how those conversations about program perception change when you beat quality teams en route to a national title berth.
Indiana and Tennessee would’ve benefited for the same reason
Straight seeding would’ve given Indiana and Tennessee a home Playoff game instead of forcing both squads to travel to hostile road atmospheres in sub-freezing temperatures. And sure, the latter is somewhat irrelevant considering that Indiana played against Notre Dame in the Hoosier State and game-time temps in Knoxville would’ve been nearly identical to what the Vols faced at Ohio State.
But given how lopsided those first-round matchups were in favor of the home teams, at the very least, IU and Tennessee would’ve played in competitive games instead of having everyone question their regular-season credentials after road blowout losses.
Perception is everything. What would the perception of Curt Cignetti’s program have been if it had beaten Boise State and given the Memorial Stadium faithful a chance to experience a home Playoff victory? Based on what it looked like when Bloomington finally hosted College GameDay for the Washington game, its’s safe to say would’ve been an extremely unique scene (good luck getting a table at Kilroy’s after that). Nobody would’ve used Indiana as the basis for arguing that the system needed tweaking. And even if it had been a close loss to Boise State on the heels of a brilliant Jeanty performance against the nation’s top run defense, we still would’ve been grateful for a competitive standalone Playoff game instead of questioning how IU made the field.
As for Tennessee, I’ve found myself asking this question a few times throughout the offseason. If Door A was rolling to a victory in a non-Playoff bowl game in Florida and Door B was what we saw play out in Columbus, would Tennessee fans have opted for Door A? It’s at least a question. I don’t want to diminish the weeks of buildup that Tennessee got for its first Playoff game. I’m old enough to remember when the “Tennessee Takeover” was going to make the difference for the visiting Vols in The Horseshoe.
Notice that neither of those options involved the “home” Vols. That’s Door C. Hosting a home Playoff game against SMU would’ve been the draw in straight seeding. After watching SMU quarterback Kevin Jennings implode at Penn State in that first-round matchup, it’s fair to assume that a similar script would’ve been likely against the loaded Tennessee defense at Neyland Stadium, where Josh Heupel had 1 loss from 2022-24.
For all the flaws that we saw play out with Tennessee — 3 consecutive scoreless first halves isn’t usually something that Playoff-bound teams experience in conference play — I do wonder how a Playoff win would’ve changed the entire vibe of the offseason even if a quarterfinal loss to Georgia followed it. Would Nico Iamaleava have had more leverage to re-negotiate his deal and potentially stay at Tennessee? Could some of those transfer portal decisions with the rest of the roster have played out differently?
We’ll never know. All we know is that the seeding process for 2024 opened the worst possible door for the offseason that followed on Rocky Top.
And … Georgia
Easy, easy, easy. I already gave Ohio State a national title in this exercise. The Buckeyes would still have the best chance to win it all, and I’m not predicting that anyone could’ve stood in their way.
But let’s remember a couple of things with Georgia’s Playoff path with straight seeding. Instead of facing Notre Dame and arguably the nation’s top pass defense, it would’ve likely gotten a quarterfinal matchup against Tennessee, AKA the team that it beat in each of the last 8 regular seasons. Winning a Playoff game against a rival carries significant weight. While we shouldn’t assume that Tennessee would’ve been overwhelmed by the Gunner Stockton version of the Georgia offense, I still would’ve picked the Dawgs to find a way to win that matchup against a banged-up Tennessee squad.
Would that have made a difference for Georgia’s mojo in a potential matchup against Ohio State in the semifinals? Probably not. Georgia fans might argue that a semifinal loss to Ohio State might not have felt much different than a quarterfinal loss to Notre Dame did. But go ask Texas fans how different a season feels when it ends with a close loss to the national champs in the semifinals compared to losing as a favorite in the quarterfinals against a lesser-talented team. That’s the pill that Texas nearly swallowed against Arizona State in the quarterfinals, but 4th-and-13 happened. It felt a bit like Texas was playing with house money against Ohio State.
We can assume Ohio State would’ve still beaten Texas in the quarterfinals and had a favorable path to get through the herky-jerky version of 2024 Georgia in the semifinals. But at the same time, Ohio State’s worst game of the Playoff came in that semifinal matchup against a Texas team that Georgia beat twice.
A much different Georgia squad had a never-say-die mindset 2 years earlier in the semifinal matchup against Ohio State. Would Ryan Day have gotten tight again in those crucial moments? Could Georgia have tapped into the championship DNA that fueled national titles in 2 of the previous 3 seasons?
Again, we don’t know. All we know is that the 2024 version of the Playoff had some major implications with sliding doors galore.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
