What the CFP's new seeding means and how it would have affected the 2024 bracket

Last year's 12 -team CFP gave byes to the four most highly-ranked conference champions.

Conference commissioners voted to go to a straight seeding format (with five spots still reserved for conference champions) in 2025 .

A 2024 simulation would have shown how the 2024 playoff would have taken shape.

Georgia , Texas and SMU would have been hurt by the change.

Ohio State's and Tennessee 's title odds would have benefited from having a bye.

The No. 5 seed isn't quite as uniquely valuable now.

Conference title games mean even less now because the playoff committee didn't want to punish teams.

Power conferences have discussed a new playoff structure that hands multiple automatic bids to each of the top four conferences.

With this structure in place, they can drift from title games and toward multiple play-in games within each conference.

I absolutely hate this idea -- if you want to wreck the integrity of the regular season, nothing would do that faster than a 7-5 or 8 -4 Big Ten team.