ATLANTA — The road to Atlanta might become more crowded.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium is scheduled to host the college football national championship game following the 2024 season. That could be the first season of the expanded playoff after the College Football Playoff board voted unanimously on a 12-team format announced Friday. Atlanta will host the final two teams in 2024 in the current four-team playoff system. There would be even more traffic to Atlanta should the format be implemented earlier than the planned 2026 season. Miami will host the national championship following the 2025 season.
Starting the new playoff format next season has been ruled out, according to College Football Playoff Executive Director Bill Hancock. But there is an eye on Atlanta as a possible start.
For the SEC, the decision to expand to 12 teams comes late. Commissioner Greg Sankey was calling for the 12-team model years ago. There was a planned presentation to school presidents in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic put the process on pause.
Expansion certainly was on Sankey’s mind nine months ago. However, the ACC, Big 12 and Big Ten formed a conference alliance and balked at expansion. Now those conferences have jumped on board in the unanimous decision for the new playoff model. Something changed.
It was wasted time. Expanding the playoff gives more teams a chance to play meaningful late-season games and a chance to play for a national title. The playoff format could have continued with four teams, and the SEC may well have had two of those participants.
“To me what’s unfortunate is that we could have spent the last nine months talking about implementation, and we are nine months farther behind than had we got to this back in January,” Sankey said Saturday before Georgia opened the season against Oregon in a Chick-fil-A Kickoff game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. I said when I was here (in Atlanta for the SEC meetings in July), I have turned the page. I didn’t think we’d be back to the story so quickly, but here we are.”
The four-team playoff format began in 2014 following the Bowl Championship Series. Two bowl games were designated as semifinals before the title game. The Chick-fil-A Bowl held in Atlanta is part of the rotation of games to host semifinals and finals.
The 12-team field will consist of six conference champions ranked highest by the selection committee and the six other highest ranked teams. The four highest ranked conference champions will receive a bye for the first round. The other eight teams will play four first-round games with seed No. 12 at No. 5, No. 11 at No. 6, No. 10 at No. 7 and No. 9 at No. 8. Quarterfinals and semifinals would be played as bowls, with the host sites different each year. The new format would push the national championship game later into the new year. Georgia defeated Alabama 33-18 on Jan. 10.
An issue for the SEC is that Texas and Oklahoma are scheduled to join in 2025. There are many details to work out, including scheduling. The playoff expansion adds to the lengthy to-do list. In the end, Sankey said what is best for college football is on the horizon.
“If I didn’t have a sense of responsibility to the whole of college football, the 12-team playoff wouldn’t be on the table,” Sankey said. “I don’t think those purposes are mutually exclusive. In other words, everybody needed to contribute to a decision. Eventually, that’s what happened. Could we have stayed at four? Sure. Could we have gone back to an old system that thrived? Absolutely.
“I believe for the SEC and for the other conferences, football needs to be strong nationally. And that means early season, end season and at the end of the season with the postseason. That’s the opportunity that’s afforded here, and we will be a willing contributor in the overall health of college football. That has to be the goal for all of us.”
