The 2021 College Football Playoff with FCS Format
College Football Playoff expansion is inevitable, and perhaps will be accelerated thanks to the 2021 season’s chaos freezing out three Power Five conference champions and Power Five step-brother Notre Dame.
An eight-team tournament seems most likely, with the possibility of a much-discussed 12-team format. Div. I already has a postseason setup, of course, as the FCS Playoffs are headed into the semifinals this coming week.
The following is a look at how the College Football Playoff would look if it adopted the 24-team format the FCS has used since 2013. For this exercise, every FBS conference receives an automatic bid — not so in FCS, with the Ivy League and SWAC opting out.
And, with the exception of the SWAC, FCS does not have a Championship Week. A team that wins its conference title game in FBS then gets into the Playoff but without a top-eight seed is looking at an arduous, 18-game march to the national championship.
For this reason, I trimmed off the conference title games and determined automatic bids by the end of the regular season standings. In that same vein, seeding is determined by the penultimate Playoff rankings prior to championship games.
That does have some considerable consequences in the below example. To wit, San Diego State is in as the Mountain West automatic bid but would have been excluded altogether with the loss to Utah State.
Championship Week gave title-game winners Baylor and Utah considerable bumps that are absent from the following, while Oklahoma State and Oregon benefit greatly.
A few other observations:
The ACC is shockingly well-represented with four teams making the cut; none are anywhere near the seed line, but still make the field all the same.
The FCS has a rule barring regular-season rematches in the 1st Round, but the following includes an all-ACC matchup. That’s because NC State and Pitt did not play each other.
There are only two SEC at-larges in the shocker of the century.
Houston-BYU in a showdown of future Big 12 rivals is tasty.
AUTOMATIC BIDS
American: Cincinnati
ACC: Pitt
Big Ten: Michigan
Big 12: Oklahoma State
Conference USA: UTSA
MAC: Northern Illinois
Mountain West: San Diego State
Pac-12: Utah
SEC: Georgia
Sun Belt: Louisiana
AT-LARGE
American: Houston
ACC: Clemson, NC State, Wake Forest
Big Ten: Iowa, Michigan State, Ohio State
Big 12: Baylor, Oklahoma
Independent: BYU, Notre Dame
Pac-12: Oregon
SEC: Alabama, Ole Miss
FORMAT
Seeds:
Georgia
Michigan
Alabama
Cincinnati
Oklahoma State
Notre Dame
Ohio State
Ole Miss
1st Round
Northern Illinois at Baylor (winner plays Ole Miss)
NC State at Pitt (winner plays Michigan)
San Diego State at Oklahoma (winner plays Alabama)
Clemson at Iowa (winner plays Cincinnati)
Houston at BYU (winner plays Oklahoma State)
Louisiana at Michigan State (winner plays Notre Dame)
Utah at Wake Forest (winner plays Georgia)
UTSA at Oregon (winner plays Ohio State)