Here’s what the 2024 College Football Playoff would have looked like with new seeding rules

The College Football Playoff has adjusted its seeding rules for the 2025 season.

According to multiple reports, the Playoff will now adapt a “straight seeding” structure, which has some major differences from what we saw in Year 1 of the 12-team Playoff last season. Last year, the top 4 seeds who received first-round byes were all conference champions.

Under the new seeding model, the top 4 seeds regardless of their conference title status will receive first-round byes. Notre Dame will also reportedly be able to earn a first-round bye in the future despite not participating in a conference title game — something that wouldn’t have been possible under the old set of rules.

Had this seeding structure been in place a year ago, here are the teams that would have earned first-round byes: Oregon, Georgia, Texas and Penn State. That would have resulted in Arizona State and Clemson each having to play Round 1 games rather than getting a bye to the quarterfinals.

Here’s what the first round matchups would have looked like:

• No. 12 Clemson at No. 5 Notre Dame
• No. 11 Arizona State at No. 6 Ohio State
• No. 10 SMU at No. 7 Tennessee
• No. 9 Boise State at No. 8 Indiana

Had the favorites all taken care of business, then these would have been the quarterfinal matchups in 2024:

• No. 5 Notre Dame vs. No. 4 Penn State
• No. 6 Ohio State vs. No. 3 Texas
• No. 7 Tennessee vs. No. 2 Georgia
• No. 8 Indiana vs. No. 1 Oregon

Of course, that would have likely produced a very different set of results than what we ultimately saw play out last winter. In reality, Oregon was eliminated in the quarterfinals by eventual-champion Ohio State. Under this set of rules, the Ducks would have been massive favorites over Indiana in the quarterfinals and would have avoided a matchup with the Buckeyes until the title game.

Tennessee, who met Ohio State in Round 1 last season, wouldn’t have had to face the Buckeyes until the semifinals under these seeding principles. Crucially, that game also would have taken place at a neutral site instead of in Columbus.

This particular scenario also would have resulted in a much tougher path for national runner-up Notre Dame. The Irish would have had to beat Clemson and Penn State just to get to the semifinals, where they would have likely met No. 1-seeded Oregon.

Spenser Davis

Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.