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The College Football Playoff, which began in 2014, is a four-team event. The top four teams in the final regular season rankings play in semifinal games on either side of the country, with the team ranked number 1 playing the team ranked number 4, and the team ranked number 2 playing the team ranked number 3. The winners of the two Bowl games then play each other in the College Playoff National Championship Game, which this season will be held at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.
But there's more to it than that, and it also provides some exciting football betting opportunities. Want to learn more? Follow our guide below!
Only four. The Playoff features two semifinal games and a National Championship game. The 2022-23 season semifinals are designated as the Fiesta Bowl and the Peach Bowl, taking place on December 31, 2022, in Arizona and Atlanta respectively . The winners of those games will meet in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game on January 9, 2023, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.
The four top-seeded teams are determined by a 13-person selection committee based on wins against common opponents, head-to-head results between college football teams and strength of schedule.
The committee is made up of athletic directors, coaches, and other college football experts. They give each team a grade that's based on its performance and strength of schedule, then rank the teams 1 through 4. The team with the best score gets first place, followed by second place, third place, and fourth place.
If there's a tie at any point in this process (say two teams have identical scores), there are also tiebreakers. The first tiebreaker is strength of schedule—the top-ranked team with the toughest schedule would get picked over a lower-ranked team with an easier schedule.
If both teams still have identical scores after comparing their respective strength of schedules, then we move on to the next step: comparing head-to-head results for those two teams.
If only one team has beaten another during their matchup history, it'll be considered part of their composite score for ranking purposes (so if Team A beat Team B earlier this season but lost to Team C, then Team A would receive points from all three games as part of its composite score).
The committee uses these rankings to determine who will play in each round; they put them out several days before each matchup begins so that fans can make plans accordingly.
The committee seeds the remaining teams based on their performance during the regular season. The top four teams are seeded from 1 to 4, but how this works is a bit convoluted.
The first step is to give each conference champion an automatic bid into the playoffs, which means that there is a maximum of five bids available in any given year. Then, each conference winner below those automatic qualifiers is ranked by its record against other conference champions and non-champions within its own division (so if two teams have identical records, they're ranked based on who beat whom).
That ranking determines which of those teams gets an automatic bid and which has to be selected by the committee as one of its "at-large" selections.
We hope this article has helped you understand the college football playoff system better and given you a deeper appreciation for the teams who made it through to the final four. The playoffs are a great way to crown a champion, and we look forward to seeing who will come out on top next year.