College Football Playoff approves 5+7 format, but best shot in for Cal remains an ACC title

The California Golden Bears will likely have to win the ACC outright to earn their way into the big show.

Photo by Chester Ho on Unsplash

As expected, the leaders of college football came together and finalized the playoff structure for 2024 and 2025. With the disintegration of the Pac-12 as we know it, the 6+6 model has been amended to 5+7:

• Top five conference champions, four of which will almost certainly be the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC champions.

• Seven highest at-larges, as determined by the CFB playoff committee.

More on the 12-team playoff schedule for 2024-25 is available in our bowl possibility post.

There is hopium that an added at-large bid will invite more opportunity for the ACC or Big 12 to earn additional slots. But I wouldn’t depend on it. With odds tilted significantly toward the powerhouses in the SEC and Big Ten, you can expect the seven at-larges (almost certainly at least two apiece) to largely be divvied up into those conferences.

With a G5 bid remaining, that will leave two slots. Expect the SEC and Big Ten to try their best to crowd that space. The last year an ACC team would have likely qualified as an at-large would have been 2017. This has been a one-bid conference for most of the past decade, with the ACC cannibalizing itself from ever competing on a win-loss perspective.

The only criteria that might allow for an ACC at-large entering the playoff is at best a one-loss team that clears the pack of SEC/Big Ten counterparts by a significant margin (say an 11-1 or 10-2 ACC team facing off against a 9-3/8-4 SEC squad for a 10th or 11th spot).

Cal of course has a long way to go before thinking of being top 12 in anything—-the Bears haven’t been ranked in the top 15 to finish a season in 18 years. Obviously, the best path for the Bears to get to the playoff the next two years is winning the ACC.

The schedule is set up for success, but they have to capitalize.