Joel Klatt’s plan to fix the College Football Playoff

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Finally, the 12-team College Football Playoff is here.

I love this for the sport and the introduction of the expanded postseason field led to a great regular season. It led to more meaningful games over the year as more teams were in the playoff hunt throughout the season. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have some issues with the field and the setup of the bracket, which I was reminded of after the reveal of the 12-team field on Sunday. While I don’t think it’s broken, there are a couple of issues I have with the committee and the structure of the playoff itself.

Here is how I would fix the College Football Playoff!

1. Create a scheduling committee of some sort

Simply put, I think we need to play more conference games. We need to have a centralized scheduling department in college football.

I’ve actually talked about that for years, so this isn’t a new issue to me. Creating a scheduling department and implementing more conference games would allow us to iron out a clearer and more consistent path to each conference’s title game. 

Remember, every power conference has gotten rid of divisions. So, now the two teams with the best conference records make the title game. But when you have fewer conference games, you create a greater possibility of a tie. There was a scenario in the SEC late in the season where eight teams possibly could’ve tied for first place. With the imbalanced schedules, there are unequal tiebreakers. 

In addition to the aforementioned examples, the imbalanced conference schedules benefited Penn State and hurt Ohio State. Penn State only played Ohio State of the three other playoff teams from the Big Ten and lost that game. Ohio State had to play all of the other three playoff teams from the Big Ten, though. It went 2-1, with its one loss coming by one point at Oregon. Additionally, Indiana also only played one of the other playoff teams in the Big Ten. Indiana didn’t make the Big Ten title game due to a tiebreaker, which makes me wonder if the tiebreaker was the difference between Penn State’s final CFP ranking and Indiana’s final CFP rankings, considering the value the committee placed on conference title games.

That isn’t to take away anything from Penn State. It earned its way to the conference title game. But conference tiebreakers shouldn’t have the influence that they currently have, and they can be negated by just playing more conference games.

2. Reseeding after the first round

Congratulations, Oregon and Dan Lanning. You’ve received the No. 1 overall seed. Your reward? You might have to get through Ohio State, Texas and Georgia to win the national championship. Oregon went undefeated in the regular season, and it might have to face three of the other four teams with the best odds of winning the national championship. 

Suffice to say, Oregon got absolutely screwed by the format and the committee’s methodology. The artificial floors placed for some teams raised them to levels where they shouldn’t have been placed. Penn State, who lost to Oregon, can reach the semifinal by beating SMU and Boise State. 

The committee manipulating the rankings the way it did to not punish the conference championship game losers caused the field to not be a true meritocracy. It’s not a true playoff. It’s not a true bracket.

Reseeding after each round could help change that. But if the higher seed won each matchup in the first round, Oregon would still have to play Ohio State. So it wouldn’t completely resolve the problem with this year’s bracket.

What to expect in future iterations of the CFP bracket

The seeding was ultimately wrong and the objective of protecting the conference championship might have devalued them by making Oregon’s path to winning a title more difficult than the path several other teams have. This won’t work.

I think the two people who are going to be most upset by this are the two most powerful people in college football: SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti. Their teams are the ones who are bearing the brunt of the artificial manipulation. 

Sankey has to be pulling his hair out that the SEC only received three bids to the CFP. He has to be thinking, “Our conference should get five at-large spots.” He’s unapologetic about the success of the SEC. Alabama was left out when its résumé was better than SMU’s. Tennessee‘s résumé might be better than Notre Dame’s and Penn State’s, but it received a lower seed and has a tougher path to winning the title than those two teams.

As for Petitti, I think he’s got to be upset. His conference champion received the toughest possible matchup of the four teams that got a bye. He’s got to think, “We can’t artificially manipulate these seeds just to give these conferences byes just to allow them to retain value for their conference championship game.”

So, these guys will start looking out for themselves, in particular when they’re pushed to the limit, because college football is an inherently selfish sport. There’s no doubt that Sankey and Petitti will cause the format to change by 2026. It’s likely going to be a 14-team field with the SEC and Big Ten each receiving four byes. There’s likely going to be reseeding in the second round so that we make sure we’re rewarding the best team in the regular season. 

This is not anybody’s fault from a team perspective. I’m not arguing against Texas, Penn State or any of those teams. 

The only team I’m arguing for is Oregon. Oregon got a ridiculously tough path because I don’t believe the committee did a proper job.

Joel Klatt is FOX Sports’ lead college football game analyst and the host of the podcast “The Joel Klatt Show.” Follow him at @joelklatt and subscribe to the “Joel Klatt Show” on YouTube.

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