LOOK: CFP Previews What a 2022 Expanded Playoff Would’ve Looked Like
If the expanded playoff were in place this past season, we know exactly how it would have looked. The College Football Playoff office distributed a bracket with 12 teams Thursday, which you can take a look at below courtesy of SI Now’s Ross Dellenger, and it offered a glimpse at the actual setup we can expect, with four conference champions receiving byes and eight other teams.
The four highest conference champions earned byes, with No. 1 Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, No. 2 Michigan in the Rose Bowl, No. 3 Clemson in the Peach Bowl and No. 4 Utah in the Fiesta Bowl. TCU, because it didn’t win the Big 12 Championship, slides in at No. 5 in an at-large game against No. 12 seed Tulane.
Kansas State, who defeated TCU in the Big 12 Title Game, is No. 9 vs. No. 8 seed Tennessee. It would have traveled to Knoxville for the meeting.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the bracket, there are a couple other matchups. Sixth-seeded Ohio State would have hosted division rival and No. 11 seed Penn State, while No. 7 seed Alabama would have welcomed Lincoln Riley and the 10th-seeded USC Trojans to Tuscaloosa.
This is a format, of course, that we’ll be seeing starting in the 2024 season. And with that in mind, there are a number of expansion schedule items under discussion this week, per Dellenger.
One of those is the initial scheduling, with the first round set for the third week of December, one game on Friday and three on Saturday. The semifinals would then be in the midweek so as to avoid the NFL’s Wild Card Weekend.
Additionally, the CFP Title Game for the first season of the new format is set for Jan. 20, 2025. One can find other details right here, as presented by Dellenger.
