"5+11 but each champion for all five conferences": CFB insider reveals his solution for new College Football Playoff amid recent drama

The College Football Playoff will adopt a new seeding model in 2025 after dramatic twists and turns to its previous setup. Last season turned out to be the first year of the 12-team playoff, where the first four spots were grabbed by conference champions based on the results of the conference championship game and the final eight spots by the selection committee rankings.

But this year, all 12 spots will be filled by the selection committee's recommendations, more like a traditional setup. While pondering the feasibility of the new format, insider Rece Davis, while speaking to Pete Thamel, mentioned that the 16-team playoff would be more stable.

As per Davis, the conference champions must be rewarded for winning the conference title and hence the first five spots will be filled by the winners of the five conferences. However, they would need to meet certain criteria.

Similarly, the rest 11 spots will be decided by the selection committee based on a well-set-up formula that could be scheduling, winning games, quality of players and other things.

“5+11 but each champion for all five conferences and Notre Dame would not get an automatic bid,” Davis told Thamel Thursday night. [Timestamp - 26:05].

“Have to meet a threshold, pretty easy threshold, not they don't have to be ranked in the top 16 committee rankings, but I would say that all of the conference champions, including the group of five, have to be ranked so that way you don't run into, you know, an obscure champion grabbing a bid and not really being worthy of competing for the national championship.

“With a 16 team playoff beyond that, I would, I would establish a formula which was probably weighted, had heavier weight in the subjective realm of what the committee decides with its rankings, but had some objective criteria based on an agreed upon strength of schedule metric, a strength of record metric, and some power rating based on how they plan, how they might look going forward. That way, you have a little bit of the best of both worlds."

College football needs more clarity on new revenue sharing model

One of the many changes programs will see this season is the revenue sharing model based on the landmark House vs NCAA settlement. As per the agreement, participating schools will get almost $20.4 million for athletic programs, which will be divided internally. However, there is no clarity on how they can proceed with existing NIL contracts.

There is no decisive guideline over how these funds can be utilized and whether there is a cap on NIL money that can be used above these funds. A regulatory committee is expected to be set up. But an exact date for all these issues hasn't been finalized yet.