College Football Welcomes the Era of the Megaconference and 12 Team Playoff

The 2024-25 college football season opened on August 24th with the so called Week 0 games, essentially a handful of games starting ahead of the bulk of the teams opening on Labor Day weekend next week. And wouldn’t know it, but the very first game, played in Dublin, Ireland, was an upset. In an ACC matchup, Georgia Tech upset 10th ranked Florida State 24-21 as Yellowjacket kicker Aidan Birr booted a 44 yard field goal as time expired.

There are enormous changes to the college football landscape this year, especially at the Division I level. The College Football Playoff, which had been just four teams and was widely criticized for it, has expanded to 12 teams. The selection of the field is a bit complex, and still includes a selection committee, but here’s some basics: the 12 teams are the five highest ranked conference champions (which receive automatic bids) plus the next seven highest ranked teams. The top four teams will get a first round bye, while numbers 5-12 will play in the first round. The first round games would take place at either the home field of the higher seeded team or another site designated by that team. We’re guessing they’ll be the former, because who wants to give up home field advantage in a playoff situation? The first round will be played December 20th-21st. The quarter finals and semifinals will be played on a rotation basis in the New Year’s Six bowls. The quarter finals this year will be played in the Fiesta, Peach, Rose, and Sugar Bowls on New Years Eve and New Years Day, while the semifinals will be the Orange Bowl (January 9th) and Cotton Bowl (January 10th). The National Championship will be played in Atlanta on January 20th.

This season also marks the beginning of the Megaconference Era. Conferences for football and basketball have been expanding in recent years, but they’re getting really huge now. The Big Ten is expanding with the addition of four former Pac-12 schools: Washington, Oregon, UCLA, and USC, for a total of 18 teams. Stanford and California have joined the ACC, which stands for Atlantic Coast Conference, but whatever. Southern Methodist has also joined, and, like the Big Ten, the ACC is now 18 teams.

The Big 12 Conference has added Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah to its ranks after adding four schools last year. The Big 12 is now 16 teams. The Southeastern Conference has also expanded to 16 teams with the addition of Oklahoma and Texas.

You may have noticed that the Pac-12 has lost a lot of teams to the Big Ten, ACC, and Big 12. You may ask, is there anybody left? The answer is Oregon State and Washington State. That’s it, just those two. For the time being, it’s a two team conference. (No, the winner doesn’t get an automatic bid to the playoffs, although it could get an at large bid). Both schools will play some of their old rivals from the Pac-12 as non conference games this season. Oregon State will play traditional cross state rival Oregon as well as California while Washington State will play Washington. Oregon State will face seven Mountain West opponents, while Washington State will face eight from the MWC. Based on that, don’t be surprised if they join that conference in the near future.