The First Round Bye Will End Your Season

Teams fight all year for the chance to earn a "coveted" first round bye in the College Football Playoffs. It makes sense. The less games you play, the better chance you have to win it all. For centuries the formula has been win regular season games, win your conference championship, and get the highest seed possible. Well, after two years of the 12 team playoffs, the results have started to suggest we may need to take a different approach.

In the past, we lived the days where there were two spots you had to earn in order to play in the national championship. The BCS days were brutal, and spared no room for error throughout the regular season. Then in 2014, came the enlightenment of the College Football Playoffs. We created 2 more spots for a total of 4 teams to have an equal shot at a ring. Then in 2024, came the expansion of the College Football Playoffs. We created 8 more spots for a total of 12 teams to hope they're seeded favorably and, with a little bit of luck, bob and weave their way to a title.

2024 CFP bracket per WSN

With a sample size of just two seasons, we don't know the whole story of whether or not the 12 team playoff with a first round bye is 'fair' or not (I say 'fair' sparingly because nothing in college football is fair). Looking at what we've seen so far, teams who earn a first round bye are 1-7... damn.

2025 CFP bracket through quarterfinals per CBS

Don't take it from some guy with a laptop, internet, and a website. Take it from head coach Dan Lanning who had a 1 seed team lose after a first round bye last year, but saw his 5 seed team go further after playing in the first round:

"The amount of time in between games, obviously, is tough for teams." - Dan Lanning per FOX College Football

It would be one thing if the record was 4-4, or maybe 3-5, but only 1 higher seeded team winning is enough cause for concern. There has to be something going on. Is there some sort of causation to point to? Or is this a funny correlation we're seeing? It's not hard to take a look at all of these teams who are "favored", and see what they have in common. A first round bye. As a result, we've created a system that punishes teams who won in the regular season, and rewards teams who lost.

Two top seeded teams in their first game were shut out in the first half.

Now, it's easy for me to sit here and type away about how broken College Football is. It's easy for me to point the finger and say, "wrong" then go about my day thinking i'm brave. I'm a big believer in if you're willing to offer criticism, you need to offer a solution. Today, i'll do just that.

There are two solutions that will solve the inequality we've created. One is through expansion to a 16 team playoff, and getting rid of the first round bye all together. Personally, I don't like the idea of expanding the playoff to more teams. I think if you lost on 3 seperate occasions, you shouldn't have the right to compete with teams who didn't lose. The theory is basically saying if the first round bye is the issue, then we take it away. Top seeds play equal amount of games against worse teams. There we go. Thats is. Problem solved, right? Yes... if the first round bye was the issue. I actually think the first round bye is a correlation to higher seeds losing, not causation.

Another solution is keeping the current 12 team playoff, rewarding higher seeded teams with home field advantage, and cutting short the wait time to play. In other words: doing what every professional sports league does. There's no need to add 4 more spots to teams who lost 3 times in the regular season but were in a "tough conference" (here's why that's dumb). I believe the reason 7 out of 8 higher seeded teams are losing is because there's no advantage being given. So let's give them the advantage they earned. No one wants to play at a "neutral site" domed NFL stadium hundreds of miles away from campus. Let the higher seeded teams play at home, on campus, and in front of their fans where they've been playing at the whole year. For those of you claiming Big Ten schools would have an unfair advantage by playing home games in January, boy do I have the solution for you...

Cut short the wait time to play. Let's use Ohio State and Miami as an example. Ohio State played their last game on December 6th. They then had to wait 25 days (almost a month) to play their playoff game. Waiting that much time to play is more of a disadvantage then an advantage. That's 3 weeks of sitting around waiting to play a team who gained momentum from their first round win. Miami played their last game on December 20th. They then had to wait 11 days (a week and a half) to play their next. We're essentially giving the lower seeds their own bye week. Why? So we can time up the quarterfinals with NYE? Seems like a cash grab... All i'm saying is we start the playoffs a week after the last conference championship week. The following week we play the next round. So on and so forth.

Almost unanimously the sports world agrees: College Football is a mess. We're actively in the wild west figuring out the best structure to naming a champion. I'm here offering a potential solution of rewarding teams with the higher see home field advantage, and shorten the period of time between games. There seems to be never ending issues being discussed in the world of sports. We'll have to wait to see if the volunteers running the CFP will act in favor of what's right vs what makes the most money.