College Football Playoff seeding is changed. Boise State is one reason why

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — The College Football Playoff seeding system will look quite different at the end of the 2025 season, and Boise State is one reason why.

CFP executives voted Thursday to seed the playoffs 1-12 based directly on the final rankings from the Selection Committee, with the teams ranked No. 1 through No. 4 receiving the byes. Last season, the first for the expanded playoffs, the top four conference champions were awarded byes, regardless of where they sat in the rankings.

That directly benefited Boise State, the Group of 5 conference champ in the field, as well as Arizona State, which won the Big 12. The Broncos were ranked No. 9 in 2024, but they received the No. 3 seed and a first-round bye straight to the Fiesta Bowl. That was because they were higher in the rankings than both Arizona State (12th) and ACC champion Clemson (16th).

The Sun Devils received a bye and the No. 4 seed. The Broncos fell at the first hurdle, losing 31-14 to No. 6 Penn State. Arizona State lost 39-31 to No. 5 Texas in double overtime in the Peach Bowl.

The playoff seeding became a hot topic of conversation after those results, and it already had been warm.

“After evaluating the first year of the 12-team Playoff, the CFP Management Committee felt it was in the best interest of the game to make this adjustment,” Rich Clark, executive director of the College Football Playoff, said in a news release.

The top five highest-ranked conference champions still will be guaranteed a spot in the playoffs. If one of those conference champs falls outside the Selection Committee’s final top 12 in the rankings, it will be awarded the lowest possible seed: 12.

“This change will continue to allow guaranteed access to the playoff by rewarding teams for winning their conference championship,” Clark said, “but it will also allow us to construct a postseason bracket that recognizes the best performance on the field during the entire regular season.”

There is still a big monetary benefit for Boise State if it wins the Mountain West for a third straight year and is among the top four champions in the rankings. Yahoo Sports reported that those four schools are still expected to receive $8 million. In 2024, the top-four champions earned $4 million for the first-round bye and $4 million for participating in the quarterfinals.

If the new rules were in effect last season, Boise State would have qualified for the playoffs, of course, as one of the top five conference champions. The Broncos would have been the No. 9 seed and would have opened the playoffs with a game at No. 8 seed Indiana in Bloomington in the first round.