College Football Playoff

From its formation in 2014 to the end of the 2023 season, the College Football Playoff used a four-team knockout bracket to determine the national champion. Six bowl games—the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and Peach Bowl– rotated as hosts for the semifinals.^[16] The rotation was set on a three-year cycle with the following pairings: Rose/Sugar, Orange/Cotton, and Fiesta/Peach. The two semifinal bowls and the other four top-tier bowls were marketed as the New Year's Six.^[17] Per contract, the Rose and Sugar Bowls were always on New Year's Day. Originally three games were held on New Year's Eve with the other three on New Year's Day. However, disappointing TV ratings in the first rotation led to games originally planned for New Year's Eve be moved to as early as December 27 in some years.^[2] The selection committee seeded the top four teams, and also assigned teams to the at-large bowls (Cotton, Fiesta, and Peach) in years when they did not host semifinals.^[18]

The four-team format pitted the No. 1-ranked team against No. 4 and No. 2 against No. 3. The seeding determined the semifinal bowl game assigned to each matchup; the No. 1 seed chose its bowl game to prevent it from playing in a "road" environment. There were no limits on the number of teams per conference, a change from previous BCS rules.^[2] However, some non-semifinal bowl selections still maintain their conference tie-ins, similarly to the BCS's automatic qualifier berths.^[19]

A team from one of the "Group of Five" conferences was guaranteed a spot in one of the New Year's Six bowls.^[20]

The CFP will expand to a 12-team format for the 2024 and 2025 seasons.^[21][22]

Features of the expanded playoff include:^[23]

• Guaranteed bids for the top five conference champions in the CFP rankings; no conference will have an automatic bid, a conference must have a minimum of eight members for its champion to be eligible for a guaranteed bid.
• At-large bids for the seven highest-ranked remaining teams, which could include additional conference champions.
• The four highest-ranked conference champions will receive first-round byes.
• The remaining teams will play each other in the first round at the home fields of the better seeds or an alternate venue of their choosing; match-ups will be 5–12, 6–11, 7–10, and 8–9.
• The quarterfinals and semifinals will be hosted by the New Year's Six (the Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, Peach, Rose, and Sugar bowls) on a rotating basis.
• The championship game will continue to be held at a separately determined neutral site.
• The playoff bracket will not be reseeded at any time.
• First round games will occur in December, quarterfinal games on or around New Year's Day, semifinal games at least one week later, and the championship game one week after the semifinals.

The teams seeded 5–12 will play first-round games hosted by the better seed, either at their home stadium or another venue of their choosing.^[23]

The semifinal and quarterfinal rounds of the playoff are hosted by the New Year's Six: the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl, and Fiesta Bowl. These games are played annually on or around New Year's Day and represent six of the oldest and most prestigious college football bowl games.

During the 4-team playoff era, the bowls rotated on a 3-year cycle. Two of the six bowls served as the CFP semifinals for any given year with the following pairings: Rose/Sugar, Orange/Cotton, and Fiesta/Peach. The year's four off-cycle bowls hosted bowl games outside of the CFP tournament bracket.

In the 12-team playoff format, four of the six bowls host quarterfinal games on or around New Year's Day (which are determined in the above pairings on a 3-year cycle). The winners advance to play in the semifinals, held in the two remaining bowls one week later. The bowls will again cycle on a rotating basis.^[23]

Cities around the country bid to host each year's championship game. The playoff group's leaders make a selection from those proposals, in a similar fashion to other large sporting events, such as the NCAA Final Four. Officials say the championship game will be held in a different city each year, and that bids must propose host stadiums with a capacity of at least 65,000 spectators.^[24] Under the system, cities cannot host both a semifinal game and the title game in the same year.

In practice, since the inaugural CFP national championship game every title game up to and including the 2025 season has been played (or is scheduled to be played) in a stadium hosting at least one National Football League team, and has been played indoors and/or in a warm-weather city.

The College Football Playoff Selection Committee consists of 13 members who generally serve three-year terms, although some initial 2013 selections served two- and four-year terms "to achieve a rotation" of members.^[25][26]

The 2024-25 CFP selection committee members are:^[27]

• Chris Ault, retired Nevada athletic director and football coach
• Chet Gladchuck, U.S. Naval Academy athletic director
• Jim Grobe, retired football coach at Wake Forest, Baylor, and Ohio
• Warde Manuel, Michigan athletic director
• Randall McDaniel, former NFL player and Arizona State All-American
• Gary Pinkel, former head coach of Toledo and Missouri
• Mack Rhoades, Baylor athletic director
• Mike Riley, former head coach of Oregon State and Nebraska
• David Sayler, Miami (Ohio) athletic director
• Will Shields, former NFL player and Nebraska All-American
• Kelly Whiteside, former college football reporter for Newsday, Sports Illustrated, and USA Today
• Carla Williams, Virginia athletic director
• Hunter Yurachek, Arkansas athletic director

The committee members include one current athletic director from each of the five "major" conferences—ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC—also known as the Power Five conferences.^{[28][29][needs update]} Other members are former coaches, players, athletic directors, and administrators, plus a retired member of the media. The goal was for the panel to consist proportionally of current "Power Five" athletic directors, former coaches, and a third group of other voters,^[28] excluding current conference commissioners, coaches, and media members.^[30] During the selection process, organizers said they wanted the committee to be geographically balanced.^[31] Conference commissioners submitted lists totaling more than 100 names from which to select the final committee members.^[32][33]

The selection of Condoleezza Rice, a former U.S. Secretary of State and Stanford University provost, was met with some backlash within the sport and the media. Critics questioned her qualifications, citing gender and lack of football experience.^[42][43]

The committee releases its top 25 rankings weekly on Tuesdays in the second half of the regular season. The top four teams are seeded in that order for the playoff.^[44][45] During the season, the committee meets and releases rankings six or seven times, depending on the length of the season (the number of games is consistent, but the number of weeks those games are played over can vary from year to year).^[37] The group, which meets at the Gaylord Texan hotel in Grapevine, Texas,^[46] reportedly meets in person up to 10 total times a year.^[33]

A team's strength of schedule is one of the most pertinent considerations for the committee in making its selections.^[47] Other factors that the committee weighs are conference championships, team records, and head-to-head results,^[12] plus other points such as injuries and weather.^[48] Unlike the BCS system, the AP Poll, Coaches' Poll, and the Harris Poll, computer rankings are not used to make the selections.^[8][28] Advanced statistics and metrics are expected to be submitted to the committee, though like other analytics, they have no formal role in the decision.^[49] Committee members are not required to attend games.^[46]

Long said the panel considered less frequent rankings, but ultimately decided on a weekly release. "That's what the fans have become accustomed to, and we felt it would leave a void in college football without a ranking for several weeks," he said. Long also noted: "Early on there was some talk that we would go into a room at the end of the season and come out with a top four, but that didn't last long."^[50] In analyzing this change in thinking, Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated commented: "The whole point of the selection committee was to replace the simplistic horse-race nature of Top 25 polls – where teams only move up if someone above them loses – with a more deliberative evaluation method. Now the playoff folks are going to try to do both."^[51] Addressing the "pecking order" nature of traditional polls, George Schrodeder of USA Today wrote that "if it actually works as intended, we could see volatile swings" from week to week, with lower-ranked teams moving ahead of higher-ranked teams without either team losing (a rarity in traditional polls). Both Long and Bill Hancock, the CFP executive director, say they expect that to happen.^[52]

The committee's voting method uses multiple ballots, similar to the NCAA basketball tournament selection process and the entire process is facilitated through custom software developed by Code Authority in Frisco, Texas.^[53] From a large initial pool of teams, the group takes numerous votes on successive tiers of teams, considering six at a time and coming to a consensus on how they should be ranked, then repeating the process with the next tier of teams. Discussion and debate happens at each voting step. All votes are by secret ballot, and committee members do not make their ballots public.^[50] Each week's ranking process begins anew, with no weight given to the previous week's selections.^[52] In this fashion, the committee selects the four teams to compete for the national championship.

Committee members who are currently employed or financially compensated by a school, or have family members who have a current financial relationship (which includes football players), are not allowed to vote for that school. During deliberations about a team's selection, members with such a conflict of interest cannot be present, but can answer factual questions about the institution.^[50] All committee members have past ties to certain NCAA institutions,^[46] but the committee decided to ignore those ties in the recusal requirements. "We just boiled it down to where we felt this group was fit to its high integrity and would differentiate from those past relationships," Long said.^[50] Some football writers, like Dennis Dodd and Mark Schlabach, have said the recusal arrangement isn't transparent or objective, suggesting that members' alma maters and former coaching jobs should be considered disqualifying conflicts of interest.^[54][55]

College football is arguably the oldest organized sport in the United States. It is substantially older than its professional counterpart, the NFL, and its earliest game, in 1869, was occurring at almost the same time professional baseball was getting started. The game developed into a popular sport with its own unique "post-season" of bowl games by the end of the first four decades of the 20th Century, the time around which the NCAA began to develop and oversee post-season tournaments in other sports.

The NCAA did eventually come to oversee much of college football. For example, in 1957, the NCAA organized college football into University and College divisions, with larger programs in the University Division, smaller ones in the College Division. In 1973, the NCAA created Division I out of the University Division, and Divisions II and III out of the College Division for smaller programs with scholarships (Div II) and without scholarships (Div III). In 1978, Division I was sub-divided into I-A (largest programs) and I-AA, which would later be renamed FBS (I-A) and FCS (I-AA) respectively. As the smaller divisions and FCS subdivision were created, the NCAA organized post-season playoffs for them.

However, FBS programs resisted making any changes to how its post-season was organized. This was because of the popularity and profitability of bowl games, which had become major TV events in the decades following World War II. Bowl games, which for many years were only exhibition games, became so popular and important within college football that, starting in 1965, the AP (sportswriters) Poll waited until after the bowl games were completed to declare its national champion. The other major poll, UPI (Coaches) began doing so in 1974.

This evolution led the FBS annual "national champion" open to considerable debate and controversy. At times in the past, particularly during the polling era from 1936 to 1997, the term "mythical national championship" was frequently used, and larger programs have often unilaterally declared themselves national champions.^{[56][57][58][59][60]}

While the NCAA has never officially endorsed a championship team, it has documented the choices of some selectors in its official NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision Records publication.^[61][62] In addition, various analysts have independently published their own choices for each season. These opinions can often diverge with others as well as individual schools' claims to national titles, which may or may not correlate to the selections published elsewhere. Among the most widely recognized national champion selectors has been the Associated Press (AP), which has conducted the AP Poll of sportswriters since the 1936 season.^[63] (see also: List of AP Poll national champions).^[64][65] The AP's main competition, United Press International (UPI), created the first Coaches Poll in 1950. (see also: List of Coaches' Poll national champions).^[65] The two polls have picked different final national poll leaders at the end of 11 different seasons since then;^[66] this situation is referred to as a "split" national championship.^[67]

As the years passed, public pressure for a playoff grew, especially following seasons in which there were split national championships in the polls. By the 1990s, the sport underwent several changes that led to a playoff. The 1992 SEC Championship Game was an enormous risk that paid off well for the Southeastern Conference (SEC) that year and in future years and gave a glimpse at what post-season football might look like.^[68] Other conferences would follow suit over the next decade. FBS schools also began making changes to bowl games themselves in the 1990s to increase the likelihood of having the top two ranked teams play each other. However, existing bowl tie-ins with conferences made arrangements such as the Bowl Coalition (1992–1994)^[69] and then Bowl Alliance (1995–1997)^[70] clumsy and incomplete at best. By 1997, public pressure from fans, coaches, and commentators for a true playoff of some kind had grown too great to ignore.^{[71][72][73][74]}

The Bowl Championship Series in 1998 succeeded in finally bringing all major conferences and bowl games into the fold for a combined BCS National Championship Game rotated amongst the four largest, most profitable bowl games - Fiesta, Orange, Rose, and Sugar.^[63] BCS rankings originally incorporated the two major polls as well as a number of computer ranking systems to determine the two best teams at the end of the season.^[75] Although the BCS era did regularly produce compelling matchups, the winnowing selection of the top two teams resulted in many BCS controversies, most notably 2003's split national championship caused by the BCS rankings leaving USC, No. 1 in both major polls, out of the Sugar Bowl.^[76] This controversy ultimately led to the AP Poll withdrawing from the BCS, and additional fine-tuning of the BCS formula. After that, the controversies lessened, but the BCS approach itself had lost the confidence of many within the college football world, and ultimately the pressure for more change led to the development of the College Football Playoff.

In 2014, the College Football Playoff made its debut, facilitating a multi-game single-elimination tournament for the first time in college football history. Four teams are seeded by a 13-member selection committee rather than by existing polls or mathematical rankings.^[25][77] The Cotton and Peach bowls were also brought into the fold. The two semifinal games became rotated among these New Year's Six bowl games, set on a three-year cycle with the following pairings: Rose/Sugar, Orange/Cotton, and Fiesta/Peach.^[17] The College Football Playoff National Championship is then played a week later at a separately determined neutral site.^[16]

From the beginning of the CFP, many within college football wanted a playoff larger than four teams. The four team playoff seems to have been arrived at through a combination of concerns such as keeping the regular season meaningful, balancing academic schedules, and fear of eroding public support for bowl games.^[78]

Several years of the 4-team playoff led to growing calls for expansion. In June 2021, the CFP announced that it would begin studying an expansion to a 12-team playoff. The CFP stated that the starting time of any new format would only be determined after it had been approved.^[79]

On February 18, 2022, the CFP rejected the playoff proposal that had seemed to have already won approval, largely through resistance of the Atlantic Coast Conference This pushed implementation of any changes to the playoff pool to no sooner than the 2026 season.^[80] However, that decision was reversed on September 2, 2022, following the announcement by USC and UCLA that they were leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten. The "alliance" between the ACC, Pac-12, and Big Ten dissolved, and along with it resistance to playoff expansion. The CFP Board of Managers unanimously voted to expand the playoffs to 12 teams, with the earliest possible change happening in the 2024 season.^[81]

Conferences and bowls negotiated early expansion for several months during the fall of 2022. A potential sticking point was the Rose Bowl, which desired to keep its traditional 5:00 p.m. ET/2:00 p.m. PT kickoff on New Year's Day or January 2, even during years it will host the semifinals instead of the quarterfinals. The problem was resolved when the commissioners gave the Rose Bowl an ultimatum to accept no special treatment or be excluded from the new playoffs, with the bowl agreeing to forgo its demands.^[21] By the end of 2022, a new 12-team format was approved to be implemented for the 2024 season.^[21] Originally, the expanded playoff was to include the top six ranked conference champions and six at-large bids, though it was later changed to five conference champions and seven at-large bids after the 2021–2024 NCAA conference realignment resulted in the Pac-12 Conference dropping to two members.^[82]

Due to the increased emphasis on strength of schedule, teams have considered playing more challenging opponents during the non-conference portion of their schedules. Some teams have traditionally played three or four "weak" non-conference opponents, but wins against such low-level competition are unlikely to impress the committee. For teams on the cusp of making the playoff four, "I think one of the first things the committee will look at is strength of schedule," said selector Oliver Luck.^[84]

Teams in the Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 play nine conference games on their twelve-game schedules and thus only have flexibility in choosing their opponents for the three non-league games. Some programs are opting to increase their schedule strength by scheduling high-profile matchups at neutral sites and on weeknights, garnering primetime TV exclusivity.^[85][86]

In response to the new playoff system, the Southeastern Conference considered increasing its conference schedule from eight to nine games, with Alabama coach Nick Saban a vocal proponent.^[87] According to Jon Solomon of the Birmingham News, "The prevailing opinion among SEC athletics directors: The SEC is difficult enough that there's no need for a ninth game."^[88] Some in the conference, like Mississippi State athletic director Scott Stricklin, expressed the opinion that a nine-game SEC schedule would result in more teams with two losses. Commissioner Michael Slive and Vanderbilt AD David Williams, among others, supported a stronger out-of-league schedule, which would likely impress the committee.^[88][89] In April 2014, the league voted to mandate that all SEC teams must play a Power Five foe (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, or independent Notre Dame) in its non-conference slate beginning in 2016. Slive noted this rule "gives us the added strength-of-schedule we were seeking".^[87] In 2014, the first year of the College Football Playoff, one team (Georgia) played two opponents from the Power Five, nine of the 14 teams played one Power Five conference opponent and three lower-level opponents (including one FCS school), and four teams did not face a Power Five foe.^[85] In the spring of 2015, the SEC decided to count games played against Independents BYU and Army toward its Power Five requirement.

The ACC, whose teams also play eight conference games (plus Notre Dame at least once every three years), also considered moving to a nine-game conference schedule. However, the league opted to stay with the eight-plus-Notre Dame model, stipulating instead that teams would have to play one Power Five school in their non-league slates beginning in 2017, which would include the Notre Dame game or other ACC schools,^[90] as will games against another FBS independent, BYU.^[91] Despite the push to increase schedule strength, some ACC coaches preferred the scheduling flexibility available with fewer permanent fixtures on a team's slate.^[92] Opinion was split among league athletic directors on moving to a nine-game schedule prior to the vote.^[93] An SEC expansion to a nine-game schedule would limit the ACC's opportunities to play Power Five non-conference opponents.^[94]

To date, 32 of the 40 teams selected for the College Football Playoff have been undefeated or 1-loss conference champions from Power Five conferences. Three 1-loss Power Five teams have been selected without playing in their conference championship game, and three others have been selected after losing their respective conference championship games. One undefeated independent team has been selected, and one undefeated conference champion from a Group of Five conference has been selected. No teams with two or more losses have been selected.^{[95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102]}

In 2013, the television broadcast rights to all six CFP bowls and the National Championship were acquired by ESPN through the 2025–26 season.^[103][104] ESPN then reached 12-year agreements to retain rights to the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, and Sugar Bowl following the dissolution of the Bowl Championship Series.^[105] In November of that year, ESPN reached a 12-year deal to broadcast the remaining three bowls, the championship game, as well as shoulder programming such as ranking shows. As a whole, the contract is valued at around $470 million per year, or nearly $5.7 billion for the life of the contract.

On March 19, 2024, ESPN reached a six-year extension, valued at $1.3 billion per year.^[106] This deal will see ESPN add the four new first-round playoff games, of which ESPN has sublicensed two to TNT Sports and will simulcast the two others on ABC.^[107] ESPN will continue to be the home for the New Year's Six bowls and the National Championship Game.^[108][109] In addition, as part of this deal, beginning in 2026–27, ESPN will simulcast the National Championship Game on ABC, marking a return of the game to broadcast television for the first time since 2010.^[110]

The inaugural College Football Playoff games in January 2015 generated larger ratings than previous BCS games. The 2015 College Football Playoff National Championship had an 18.9 Nielsen rating^[111] and was watched by approximately 33.4 million people, the largest broadcast audience of all time on American cable television (non-broadcast), according to AdWeek. That was a 31 percent audience increase over the previous year's championship game and a 22 percent increase over the BCS title game's best rating on cable (a 16.1 rating in 2011).^[112] The semifinal games, the 2015 Rose Bowl and 2015 Sugar Bowl, saw 28.16 million and 28.27 million viewers, respectively.^[113] According to ESPN, these games also set (and briefly held) all-time records for cable TV viewership.^[114][115]

In 2015, the ratings for the two semifinal games were down from the prior season's equivalents, with the Orange Bowl reaching a 9.7 rating (in comparison to 15.5 for the 2015 Rose Bowl) and the Cotton Bowl reaching a 9.9 rating (in comparison to a 15.3 rating for the 2015 Sugar Bowl). On the online WatchESPN streaming service, excluding 2014 FIFA World Cup games, the Cotton Bowl and the Orange Bowl drew the second and third-largest streaming audiences in the service's history, behind the 2015 national championship. The ratings drops were attributed to the New Year's Eve time slot, as fewer people were at home to watch the game.^[116] The decline in ratings was a factor in changes for the scheduling of future CFP semi-final games.^[117]

In 2012, ESPN reportedly agreed to pay about $7.3 billion over 12 years for broadcasting rights to all seven games, an average of about $608 million per year. That includes $215 million per year which was already committed to the Rose, Sugar and Orange bowls,^[118] plus $470–475 million annually for the rest of the package.^[119] By comparison, the most recent contract with the BCS and the Rose Bowl had paid approximately $155 million per year for five games.^[120]

The average revenue to the new system over 12 years is to be about $500 million per year. After $125–150 million in expenses, the Power Five conferences split about 71.5 percent of the remaining money, for an approximate average payout of $250 million a year ($50 million per league) over the life of the contract. The "Group of Five" conferences split 27 percent, about $90 million a year ($18 million per league). Notre Dame receives around one percent, about $3.5-4 million, and other FBS independents get about 0.5 percent of the deal.^[121][122]

Extra revenue goes to conferences in contracts with the Rose, Sugar, and Orange bowls, which split revenue 50/50 between their participating leagues.^[121] In non-semifinal years, the Rose Bowl's TV revenue would be divided between the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences; likewise, the Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl revenue to its participant conferences. When those bowls are semifinal games, the money is distributed by the playoff system to all FBS conferences.^[118] ESPN has paid about $80 million a year each for the Rose and Sugar bowls over 12 years. The Orange Bowl deal is worth $55 million per year.^[123] For example, in a non-semifinal year, the Big Ten could receive about $90 million (half of its $80 million Rose Bowl deal plus about $50 million from the playoff system).^[121]

Conferences receive an additional $6 million each year for each team it places in the semifinals and $4 million for a team in one of the three at-large bowls; Notre Dame receives the same amount in either scenario. No additional money is awarded for reaching the championship game.^[121]

The Power Five conferences and the "Group of Five" have not decided on their respective revenue-sharing formulas, though the SEC initially receives more revenue than the other four Power Five conferences due to its BCS success.^[121][122] Reports say the money is to be divided based on several criteria such as "on-field success, teams' expenses, marketplace factors and academic performance of student-athletes".^[124] The playoff system awards academic performance bonuses of $300,000 per school for meeting the NCAA's Academic Progress Rate standard of 930.^[121] In a hypothetical 14-team conference, $4.2 million ($300,000 x 14) would be allocated to that league, and if only 12 of the 14 members meet the APR standard, then each of the 12 schools would receive $350,000 ($4.2 million / 12),^[122] penalizing schools that fall below the threshold.^[125]

BCS Properties, LLC holds all properties related to the College Football Playoff.^[126] Previous BCS commissioner Bill Hancock is the executive director of the playoff organization,^[127] with former SEC Assistant Commissioner for Championships Byron Hatch as COO.^[128] Like the BCS, the playoff system's management committee^[129] consists of the conference commissioners from the 10 FBS conferences^[130] and Notre Dame's athletic director.^[32] The playoff system's headquarters is in Irving, Texas.^[127]

According to the CFP website, the system's operations are controlled by the Board of Managers, which consists of presidents and chancellors of the playoff group's member universities. The eleven members have sole authority to develop, review and approve annual budgets, policies and operating guidelines. The group also selects the company's officers.^[131]

• Eric Barron – President, Penn State (Big Ten)
• Rodney Bennett – President, Southern Miss (C-USA)
• Joe Castro – Chancellor, California State University; former president, Fresno State (Mountain West)
• Gordon Gee – President, West Virginia (Big 12)
• Jack Hawkins – Chancellor, Troy (Sun Belt)
• Rev. John I. Jenkins – President, Notre Dame (Independent)
• Mark Keenum – President, Mississippi State (SEC)
• Kirk Schulz – President, Washington State (Pac-12)
• John Thrasher – President, Florida State (ACC)
• Satish Tripathi – President, Buffalo (MAC)
• R. Gerald Turner – President, SMU (The American)

According to the CFP website, the Athletics Directors Advisory Group is appointed by the management committee to "offer counsel" on the operations of the system. As an advisory board, it has no authority in the management of the CFP.^[131]

• Gary Barta, Iowa (Big Ten)
• Tom Bowen, Memphis (The American)
• Tom Burman, Wyoming (Mountain West)
• Joe Castiglione, Oklahoma (Big 12)
• Jeremy Foley, Florida (SEC)
• Dan Guerrero, UCLA (Pac-12)
• Chris Massaro, Middle Tennessee (C-USA)
• Terry Mohajir, UCF (The American)
• Mike O'Brien, Toledo (MAC)
• Stan Wilcox, Florida State (ACC)

Although being generally well received,^[10] the College Football Playoff has been criticized much like its predecessor, the Bowl Championship Series, which had several controversies.^[132]

Because the tournament has four teams, at least one Power Five champion misses the playoffs every season. However, not all teams selected have been conference winners:

• In 2016, Ohio State (11–1) – who did not qualify for the Big Ten Championship Game – was selected by the committee. Both the Big Ten champions Penn State (11–2) and Big 12 champions Oklahoma (10–2) had worse records; Penn State had advanced to the conference championship game over Ohio State by virtue of a close victory earlier in the season; Oklahoma lost at home to Ohio State early in the season;
• In 2017, Alabama (11–1) – who did not qualify for the SEC Championship Game due to a final-week loss against SEC runners-up Auburn – was selected ahead of the Big Ten's Ohio State (11–2) and Pac-12's USC (11–2);
• In 2021, Georgia (12–1) lost the SEC Championship Game to Alabama (12–1) but was selected over three Power Five conference champions with multiple losses;
• In 2022, TCU (12–1) was selected for the playoff despite losing the Big 12 Championship Game to Kansas State (10–3) in overtime. Ohio State (11–1) – who once again missed the Big Ten Championship Game due to a Week 12 loss to eventual Big Ten champion Michigan – was also selected, ahead of the ACC's Clemson (11–2) and Pac-12's Utah (10–3).

Some analysts have discussed whether the committee should select conference champions only.^[133][134]

Another critique centered around a perceived bias against smaller conferences such as the Big 12 which used to not stage a conference championship game, but reintroduced one for the 2017 season. The American Athletic Conference addressed this issue by enlisting Navy to its ranks for 2015, bringing its membership to 12 teams, which allowed it to stage a conference championship game under then-current NCAA rules.^[135] Since the 2016 season, FBS conferences have been allowed to stage football championship games even if they do not have 12 members.^[136]

There are opinions^{[by whom?]} labeling the CFP system "just as" or "even more polarizing" than the BCS or the old wire-service poll system.^{[137][138][139][140]} However, most in sports media^[who?] believe the College Football Playoff Committee got the right foursome for the 2017–18 playoff, for example, for advancing Alabama, a one-loss team excluded from its conference championship on a tiebreaker, instead of Ohio State, a two-loss conference champion.^{[141][142][143]}

In 2019, Urban Meyer, head coach of the national champion 2014 Ohio State Buckeyes football team, said that he intentionally ran up the score against Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game to help his team be chosen for the playoff. Criticizing the subjectivity of the selection process, Meyer said that he left the starting lineup in the game despite Ohio State being ahead 45–0 in the third quarter—not resting the starters and risking their health, and poor sportsmanship—because "I don't think the 'eye test' and 'people think' is going to get enough to bump TCU and Baylor". He continued, "I had a job to do, and that was to get Ohio State in the playoff. Do I think that's right? That's wrong", proposing a selection system based on defined criteria.^[144]

Late in the 2020 season, which was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Sports Illustrated writer Pat Forde was strongly critical of the CFP committee for what he considered unfair treatment of teams outside the Power Five; he note that the Big 12's Iowa State, at 8–2, were ranked No. 7, one spot ahead of the top Group of Five team, the AAC's then-unbeaten Cincinnati, and twelve spots ahead of the Sun Belt's Louisiana, a team who had beaten Iowa State by 17 points and whose only loss to that point had been in a conference game against unbeaten Coastal Carolina.^[145] Michael Aresco, commissioner of Cincinnati's American Athletic Conference, had equally pointed criticism, accusing the committee of "undermining its credibility with rankings that defy logic and common sense and fairness," and said that he would much prefer the computer-calculated BCS rankings system."^[146] No Group of Five team was ranked in the CFP top four until Cincinnati was fourth in the rankings released on November 23, 2021.^[147]

The 2023 season saw the tightest playoff race in history, with eight teams in plausible contention before the conference championship weekend. The eventual selection of the one-loss conference champions Alabama (SEC) and Texas (Big 12) was controversial as both teams were selected ahead of unbeaten ACC champion Florida State; prior to 2023, no undefeated Power Five champion had failed to be selected for the playoff. ACC commissioner Jim Phillips called the decision "unfathomable" due to the significance the committee had previously afforded to undefeated conference champions, and Seminoles coach Mike Norvell said he was "disgusted and infuriated" at the decision.^[148] CFP committee chair Boo Corrigan cited the late-season injury of Florida State's quarterback Jordan Travis as a reason to rank both Alabama and Texas over Florida State.^[149]

The qualifications of selection committee members have also been scrutinized. As an outsider to the sports world, Condoleezza Rice's selection was the focus of some criticism. Former Clemson head coach Tommy Bowden expressed the opinion that the committee's members should be "people who played the game and preferably coached the game".^[150] Former Auburn head coach Pat Dye said, "All she knows about football is what somebody told her ... or what she read in a book, or what she saw on television. To understand football, you've got to play with your hand in the dirt". Former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese also gained membership on the selection committee despite having never played football in college.^[151] Former sportswriter Steve Weiberg and retired U.S. Air Force General Michael Gould are other committee members without significant football playing, coaching, or administrative experience.

The semifinal games for the 2015 season were scheduled for December 31; they were expected to have lower television viewership because the date is not a federal holiday, and because the second game faced heavy competition for television viewers in primetime from New Year's Eve specials (such as New Year's Rockin' Eve, which is aired by ESPN's sister broadcast network ABC). Under television contracts with ESPN that predate the College Football Playoff, both the Rose and Sugar Bowl games are guaranteed exclusive TV time slots on January 1 (or January 2 if New Year's Day falls on a Sunday), regardless of whether they are hosting a semifinal game.^[152] In an interview with CBS Sports, CFP commissioner Bill Hancock suggested this scheduling issue would "change the paradigm of what New Year's Eve is all about," opining that "if you're hosting a New Year's Eve party, you better have a bunch of televisions around".^[153] Although ESPN proposed moving the Thursday, December 31, 2015, semifinal games to Saturday, January 2, 2016, the idea was rejected.^[154] The semifinal games' ratings were ultimately down significantly from those of the previous season.^[116]

In an effort to reduce the impact of their New Year's Eve scheduling, the 2016 semifinal games, which fell on a Saturday, had earlier kickoff times, at 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. ET respectively. The 2016 Orange Bowl was played in primetime on December 30, 2016, rather than in an early afternoon window on New Year's Eve. Hancock considered the earlier start times to be a compromise to reduce the games' intrusion into New Year's Eve festivities, but reiterated that there were no plans to move the semi-final games from New Year's Eve outside of years where they are hosted by the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl.^[155][156]

On July 28, 2016, however, Hancock reversed this stance and announced revisions to the scheduling for future College Football Playoff semi-final games. The games were rescheduled so that they will not necessarily be played on New Year's Eve yearly: outside of years when they are hosted by the Rose and Sugar Bowls (where they retain their traditional New Year's Day scheduling), they will now be scheduled primarily on the last Saturday or federally observed holiday of the year. In some years, this date will land on New Year's Eve. In 2021, the games were played on Friday, December 31, because the day was observed as a holiday.^[117][157] Viewership of the 2018 semi-finals were down by 25% over the previous semi-finals, which were played on New Year's Day.^[158]

• List of college bowl games

• Official website