The breaking news that everyone was hoping for has arrived, as the College Football Playoff is changing things up for next season. Yup, instead of the Top 4 conference champs getting byes for the first round, that honor will now go to the best four teams in the country.
This would have been great for Tennessee football in 2024. Will it matter for 2025? We sure hope so, but now countless fans are left more frustrated with how things ended last campaign. Due to the bogus seeding last winter, the Vols had to play at The Shoe against Ohio State in Round 1.
This should have never been the case. Had this new format been in place last campaign, Tennessee would have played against SMU to open up the CFP in a battle between the No. 7 seed vs. the No. 10 squad. Instead, Tennessee got trounced by the Buckeyes, who ended up winning it all.
BREAKING: CFP executives unanimously adopted a move to “straight seeding” for this year’s playoffs in a call today, per @RossDellenger.
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) May 22, 2025
Teams will be seeded directly on the 1-12 rankings, eliminating the concept that designated the top 4 seeds for conference champs. pic.twitter.com/4dscG5fSwL
The College Football Playoff will now have 'straight seeding' moving forward
Plenty of people were upset last year when Georgia, Boise State, Arizona State and Oregon got the byes. Boise State and Arizona State getting the first week of CFP action off? Give us a break. We can't rewind the clock, but SMU vs. Tennessee in the first round would have been such a good game.
Had Tennessee won that game and moved on to the quarterfinals, the Vols would have taken on the Georgia Bulldogs. In that game, though, the Dawgs would have been without star quarterback Carson Beck, who suffered his serious elbow injury in the SEC title game.
The stars would have been aligning for Tennessee to potentially go on a run to the semifinals. Instead, the program's first trip to the College Football Playoff ended before it could even really get started. Would this all have changed things with Nico Iamaleava this offseason? Who knows.
Plenty of college football fans are pretty fired up in a good way over the straight seeding move, but there's no reason this shouldn't have been the case from the start for the expanded format. Thankfully things have gotten done now, but no one can argue with the fact that it has come a year too late.