College Football Playoff’s Credibility Crisis: Ditch the Rankings Show, Not the Format
The College Football Playoff is barely two years into its expanded 12-team format, and a familiar pattern is already emerging: widespread outrage and calls for immediate fixes. While debates rage over access and fairness, the core issue plaguing the system isn’t the structure itself, but a self-inflicted wound – the committee’s weekly televised rankings reveal.
Last year, controversy erupted over automatic bids favoring teams like Boise State and Arizona State over higher-ranked programs. The commissioners responded with a format change to prevent a repeat. This year, the focus has shifted to automatic berths for programs like Tulane and James Madison, while Notre Dame was left out despite a stronger record, largely due to Duke’s unexpected ACC championship. The immediate reaction, predictably, was a demand for a minimum ranking threshold. However, experts suggest these adjustments address symptoms, not the disease.
The central problem, according to analysis of the 2025 playoff race, is the selection committee’s weekly Tuesday night rankings show. The show creates a premature and often misleading pecking order that ultimately undermines the integrity of the final selections. This was particularly evident with Alabama, which lost its SEC title game decisively but remained at No. 9 in the rankings, securing an at-large berth. Simultaneously, Miami and Notre Dame found themselves swapping positions without even playing another game.
“Any rankings or show before the last one is an absolute joke and a waste of time,” a frustrated Notre Dame athletic director stated following the selections. “If the rankings shows are legitimate, there is no logical explanation for what happened to us.” The irony, as noted, is that the current contract – signed off on by previous leadership, including Jack Swarbrick – mandates these very rankings shows.
Without the influence of the interim rankings, it’s likely Alabama, having lost two of its final three games against Power Four opponents, would not have made the playoff. Both 10-2 Miami and 10-2 Notre Dame would have been included, their seeding reflecting their head-to-head result. The five-week “pecking order” simply didn’t exist, and the final selections would have been based on a more holistic assessment.
The Tuesday night shows, while relatively harmless during the four-team playoff era, have become significantly more problematic with the expanded field. Spots 9 through 11 now carry far more weight, and five weeks of preliminary rankings have proven capable of drastically influencing the selection process. The conferences, however, are hesitant to relinquish the revenue stream tied to the broadcasts.
The CFP’s new six-year contract with ESPN, commencing next season, is worth a staggering $7.8 billion. Crucially, it still stipulates the release of five sets of rankings before Selection Sunday. Despite this, viewership numbers, averaging between 714,000 and 961,000 for the November shows, and peaking at 1.6 million during a Champions Classic basketball broadcast, are comparable to, and often exceed, those of lower-tier ESPN programming like weeknight Tulane-UTSA games. Studio shows are also significantly cheaper to produce, making them a valuable asset for the network.
The only path to eliminating this “credibility killer,” as some describe it, lies in the commissioners’ willingness to prioritize integrity over incremental revenue. A senior official suggested that a more measured approach, mirroring the basketball committee’s top-16 reveal a month before Selection Sunday, would be a viable compromise.
Instead, the focus is likely to be on excluding future James Madisons – as if a Sun Belt school’s success is the problem – and navigating a potential stalemate between Tony Petitti and Greg Sankey over the optimal format for a 16- or 24-team playoff. This cycle of reactive adjustments echoes the 16 years of the BCS, where constant tweaks to the formula ultimately damaged the system’s credibility, leading to Congressional hearings and antitrust concerns.
The current generation of commissioners risks repeating those mistakes. A more prudent approach would be to maintain the current format for a period of stability, avoiding the annual need to re-educate fans on the playoff structure. The most impactful change, however, remains a selection process that isn’t compromised by premature self-evaluation. Focusing on a process that doesn’t undermine itself before the committee even selects the teams is paramount.
