College Football Playoff facts for kids

Quick facts for kids College Football Playoff
In operation	2014–present
Preceded by	Bowl Championship Series (1998–2013) Bowl Alliance (1995–1997) Bowl Coalition (1992–1994) National polls (1936–1991) Various contemporary and retroactive selectors (1869–1935)
Number of teams	12
Championship trophy	College Football Playoff National Championship Trophy
Television partner(s)	ESPN (2014–present) ABC (2024–present) TNT Sports (2024–present; sublicensing agreement with ESPN)
Most playoff appearances	Alabama (8)
Most playoff wins	Alabama (9)
Most playoff championships	Alabama (3)
Conference with most appearances	SEC (10)
Conference with most game wins	SEC (14)
Conference with most championships	SEC (6)
Last championship game	2025 College Football Playoff National Championship
Current champion	Ohio State
Executive director	Richard M. Clark

The College Football Playoff (CFP) is a yearly tournament that decides the national champion for the top level of college football in the United States. It's like a knockout competition where teams play until only one champion remains. The tournament ends with the exciting College Football Playoff National Championship game. The first tournament happened in 2014 with four teams. In 2023, the CFP decided to make the playoff bigger, with 12 teams, starting in 2024. This new setup will be used at least until the end of the 2025 season.

The NCAA, which oversees college sports, doesn't pick an official national champion for this level of football. So, when the CFP started in 2014, it was the first time a major championship was decided by a bracket-style competition. A group of 13 people, called a committee, chooses and ranks the teams for the CFP. This is different from how teams were chosen before, which used polls or computer rankings for the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) from 1998 to 2013.

The current 12-team CFP format has a first round of games that are separate from the traditional bowl games. In this first round, teams ranked 5th through 12th play each other. The team with the higher rank gets to play at their home stadium or a place they choose. After that, the quarterfinal and semifinal games are played at the famous New Year's Six bowl games. The national championship game then follows.

From 2014 to 2023, the two semifinal games rotated among six major bowl games: the Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl, and Sugar Bowl. These are known as the New Year's Six. The national championship game is played on the first Monday that is at least six days after the semifinals. The city that hosts the championship game is chosen based on bids, similar to the NCAA Final Four in basketball.

The team that wins the Championship Game receives the College Football Playoff National Championship Trophy. This trophy was specially made for the CFP and is different from older championship trophies.

How the Playoff Works

Four-Team Playoff (2014–2023)

From 2014 to 2023, the College Football Playoff used a four-team knockout system to find the national champion. Six important bowl games, including the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl, took turns hosting the semifinal games. These six bowls were called the New Year's Six. The selection committee picked the top four teams and also assigned teams to other major bowls when they weren't hosting semifinals.

In the four-team format, the number 1 ranked team played against the number 4 team, and number 2 played number 3. The top-ranked team got to choose which semifinal bowl game they wanted to play in. There were no limits on how many teams from one conference could be in the playoff.

Twelve-Team Playoff (2024–2025)

The CFP expanded to a 12-team format for the 2024 and 2025 seasons.

Here are some key features of the expanded playoff:

• The champions from the top five conferences in the CFP rankings are guaranteed a spot. A conference needs at least eight teams for its champion to get this guaranteed spot.
• The next seven highest-ranked teams get "at-large" bids, meaning they are chosen even if they didn't win their conference. This can include more conference champions.
• For the 2024 season, the four highest-ranked conference champions got a "bye" in the first round, meaning they didn't have to play. For the 2025 season, the four highest-ranked teams overall, regardless of whether they won their conference, received first-round byes.
• The teams ranked 5th through 12th play each other in the first round. These games are played at the home stadiums of the higher-ranked teams or a venue they choose. The matchups are 5 vs. 12, 6 vs. 11, 7 vs. 10, and 8 vs. 9.
• The quarterfinal and semifinal games are hosted by the New Year's Six bowls (Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, Peach, Rose, and Sugar Bowls) on a rotating schedule.
• The championship game is still held at a neutral location chosen separately.
• The playoff bracket is not reseeded, meaning once teams are placed, their path to the championship doesn't change.
• First-round games happen in December. Quarterfinal games are around New Year's Day. Semifinal games are at least a week later, and the championship game is one week after the semifinals.

Game Locations

On-Campus Games

Teams ranked 5th through 12th play their first-round games at the home stadium of the higher-ranked team. Sometimes, they might choose another nearby venue.

New Year's Six Bowls

The semifinal and quarterfinal games of the playoff are hosted by the New Year's Six bowls. These are the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl, and Fiesta Bowl. These games are played every year around New Year's Day and are some of the oldest and most respected college football bowl games.

In the past, during the four-team playoff, two of these six bowls hosted the semifinals each year. Now, with the 12-team playoff, four of the six bowls host quarterfinal games around New Year's Day. The winners then move on to play in the semifinals, which are held in the two remaining bowls about a week later.

Championship Game

Cities across the country compete to host the annual championship game. The leaders of the playoff group choose a city from the proposals, similar to how other big sports events like the NCAA Final Four pick their hosts. Officials have said the championship game will be in a different city each year. The stadiums chosen must hold at least 65,000 fans. A city cannot host both a semifinal game and the championship game in the same year.

Since the first CFP national championship game, every game up to and including the 2025 season has been played in a stadium that hosts an NFL team. These games have also been played indoors or in cities with warm weather.

How Teams Are Chosen

Selection Committee

The College Football Playoff Selection Committee has 13 members. They usually serve for three years.

The committee members include athletic directors from the five "major" conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC), also known as the Power Five conferences. Other members are former coaches, players, and administrators, plus a retired media member. The goal is to have a balanced group of experts.

Committee Voting Process

The committee releases its top 25 rankings every Tuesday during the second half of the regular season. The top four teams are then ranked in order for the playoff. The committee meets in person several times a year to discuss and rank teams.

One of the most important things the committee looks at is a team's strength of schedule. This means how tough their opponents were during the season. Other factors include winning conference championships, overall team records, and head-to-head results (who won when two teams played each other). They also consider things like injuries and weather. Unlike older systems, the CFP committee does not use computer rankings to make its choices.

The committee uses a voting method with multiple ballots, similar to how teams are chosen for the NCAA basketball tournament. They discuss and debate each team's ranking. All votes are secret, and committee members do not share their individual ballots publicly. Each week's ranking process starts fresh, meaning they don't just adjust the previous week's rankings.

If a committee member works for or gets money from a school, or has family members who do, they are not allowed to vote for that school. When a team they have a conflict of interest with is being discussed, those members leave the room. They can, however, answer factual questions about the school.

History of the Playoff

Why the Playoff Started

College football is a very old sport in the United States. For many years, the national champion was decided by polls of sportswriters and coaches, which sometimes led to different champions being named in the same year. This was called a "split national championship." Fans and coaches wanted a clearer way to decide the champion.

In the 1990s, college football tried different systems like the Bowl Coalition and Bowl Alliance to bring top teams together. Then, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) started in 1998. The BCS tried to match the top two teams in a championship game. However, there were still arguments, especially in 2003 when a top-ranked team was left out of the championship game. This led to more calls for a better system.

The College Football Playoff Begins

In 2014, the College Football Playoff officially began. For the first time, college football had a multi-game knockout tournament. A 13-member selection committee chose the four teams, instead of relying on polls or computer rankings. The Cotton and Peach bowls joined the New Year's Six, and the two semifinal games rotated among these bowls. The College Football Playoff National Championship game was then played a week later at a separate neutral location.

Playoff Expansion

From the very beginning of the CFP, many people in college football wanted a playoff with more than four teams. They felt that four teams weren't enough to include all the deserving teams.

In June 2021, the CFP announced it would look into expanding to a 12-team playoff. After some discussions and changes, the CFP Board of Managers voted unanimously in September 2022 to expand the playoffs to 12 teams. This change happened for the 2024 season. The expanded playoff was originally planned to include the top six conference champions and six at-large teams, but it was later changed to five conference champions and seven at-large bids.

How the Playoff Affects Schedules

Because the committee looks closely at how tough a team's schedule is, teams have started to play more challenging opponents outside of their conference games. In the past, some teams played many "easy" non-conference opponents, but wins against weaker teams don't impress the committee as much.

Conferences like the Big Ten, Big 12, and Pac-12 play nine conference games out of their twelve-game schedules. This means they only have three non-conference games to schedule. Some teams are choosing to play high-profile games at neutral sites or on weeknights to get more TV attention and boost their schedule strength.

The SEC, for example, decided in 2014 that all its teams must play at least one team from another Power Five conference (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, or independent Notre Dame) in their non-conference schedule starting in 2016. This rule was put in place to make their schedules stronger.

Games Played

Team Appearances

Teams Selected by Year

In the four-team era of the College Football Playoff (2014-2023), most of the teams chosen were undefeated or had only one loss and were champions from a Power Conference. No teams with two or more losses were ever picked for the four-team playoff.

Team Performance Summary

Detailed Team Results

Conference Records

These records show how conferences performed in the playoff games. The conference listed is the one the team belonged to when the game was played. For example, Oregon played in 2014 as part of the Pac-12, and in 2024 as part of the Big Ten.

TV Coverage

Broadcasting Rights (2013–2024)

In 2013, ESPN bought the rights to show all six CFP bowl games and the National Championship until the 2025–26 season. This big deal was worth about $470 million each year.

Broadcasting Rights (2025–2032)

On March 19, 2024, ESPN extended its contract for another six years, worth $1.3 billion per year. This new deal includes the four new first-round playoff games, along with the New Year's Six bowls and the National Championship Game. ESPN can also let other networks show some games. In May 2024, TNT Sports signed a deal to broadcast two first-round games and two quarterfinal games each year from 2026–27 to 2028–29. For the 2024–25 season, the other two first-round playoff games were also shown on ABC. Starting in 2026–27, ESPN will also show the National Championship Game on ABC, bringing the game back to regular TV for the first time since 2010.

TV Viewership

The first College Football Playoff games in January 2015 had very high TV ratings. The 2015 College Football Playoff National Championship was watched by about 33.4 million people. This was the largest audience ever for a non-broadcast show on American cable at that time. It was a big increase in viewers compared to previous championship games. The semifinal games also had huge audiences.

In 2015, the ratings for the two semifinal games were lower than the year before. This was because they were played on New Year's Eve, when fewer people were home to watch. Because of this, the CFP changed the schedule for future semifinal games.

Money and Revenue

In 2012, ESPN reportedly agreed to pay about $7.3 billion over 12 years for the broadcasting rights. This averages out to about $608 million per year.

The playoff system makes about $500 million in revenue each year. After paying for expenses, the Power Five conferences share about 71.5 percent of the remaining money. This means they get about $250 million a year, or $50 million for each league. The "Group of Five" conferences share about 27 percent, which is about $90 million a year ($18 million per league). Notre Dame gets about one percent, and other independent teams get about 0.5 percent.

Conferences also get extra money. For example, they receive an additional $6 million each year for every team they place in the semifinals. They get $4 million for a team in one of the three at-large bowls. No extra money is given for reaching the championship game itself.

The playoff system also gives academic performance bonuses. Schools that meet the NCAA's Academic Progress Rate standard get $300,000. This encourages schools to focus on their student-athletes' academic success.

Leadership

Bill Hancock has served as Executive Director of the CFP since its creation in 2012.

BCS Properties, LLC owns all the rights related to the College Football Playoff. Bill Hancock, who was the commissioner for the previous BCS system, is the main leader (executive director) of the playoff organization. The management committee for the playoff system includes the commissioners from the 10 FBS conferences and the athletic director from Notre Dame. The main office for the playoff system is in Irving, Texas.

Board of Managers

The Board of Managers controls how the CFP operates. This group includes presidents and chancellors from the universities that are part of the playoff system. These eleven members have the power to approve budgets, rules, and how the system runs. They also choose the leaders of the organization.

• 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)

Athletics Directors Advisory Group

The Athletics Directors Advisory Group is chosen by the management committee to give advice on how the system works. This group does not have the power to make decisions for the CFP.

• 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)

See also

• List of college bowl games