METRO ATLANTA — If you are a Georgia Bulldogs fan, the question is simple: Are you happy or worried that the College Football Playoff will continue its policy of selecting only four teams?
On Thursday, the CFP’s “Board of Managers” met to discuss ideas to move forward on the playoff.
On Friday morning, they announced the current four-team playoff system will continue until the television contract ends at the close of the 2025 season.
“The Board of Managers has accepted a recommendation from the Management Committee to continue the current four-team playoff for the next four years, as called for in the CFP’s original 12-year plan,” said Bill Hancock, the executive director of the College Football Playoff.
“At the same time, the Board expects the Management Committee to continue its discussions of a new format that would go into effect for the 2026-27 season.”
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There had been multiple layers of discussion and several meetings between the Football Bowl Subdivision teams, where they debated potential playoff expansion ideas.
As recently as the summer of 2021, there were tentative agreements among the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-12, the SEC and the “Group of 5″ schools to grow the playoff and allow more teams in.
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But just a few weeks after a committee moved forward a proposal to expand to 12 teams, Oklahoma and Texas announced they were going to leave the Big 12 and move to the SEC.
The presidents and athletic directors put their plans all on hold while multiple schools followed suit and moved to different conferences.
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The move only increases the pressure on teams like the Georgia Bulldogs who hope to defend their 2021 College Football Playoff title and other SEC teams. While 2021 was not the first time two SEC teams made it to the playoff, the team that does not win the conference championship is at the mercy of the selection committee choosing an at-large choice.
It’s expected that the team running the playoff will make changes to the four-team format when they negotiate a new TV deal starting with the 2026 season. That’s when the playoff’s current contract with ESPN runs out.
The playoff, which is not operated by the NCAA, features the four top-ranked teams in the country playing in games that rotate through a six bowl game rotation every year.
The 2022 semi-finals will be played at the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl and at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in Atlanta. The championship game will be held in Los Angeles and played at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
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