Here’s how expanded College Football Playoff works

The 2024 college football season will be fully under way Saturday with an impressive schedule that includes No.1 Georgia vs. No. 14 Clemson, No. 8 Penn State vs. West Virginia, No. 7 Notre Dame vs. No. 20 Texas A&M and No. 19 Miami vs. Florida.

Much of the chatter this season will be focused on the newly expanded, 12-team College Football Playoff.

Here are three frequently asked questions about the new format.

How will the expanded playoff format work?

Champions from the Power Four conferences — the Big 12, SEC, ACC and Big Ten — will get an automatic bid and first-round bye. The highest-ranked Group of Five champion — CBS Sports ranked them recently — will be seeded by a vote of the CFP committee, most likely 12th.

After that, the remaining seeds will be based on the final committee rankings, with seeds five, six, seven and eight hosting a first-round playoff game. So, the No. 5 seed would play the No. 12 seed, No. 6 would play No. 11, No. 7 would play No. 10 and No. 8 would play No. 9. 

The winners will advance to the quarterfinals to face seeds one through four in a New Year’s Six bowl. There is no re-seeding at any point in the playoff, so the No. 1 seed will always play the winner of the No. 8 vs No. 9 first round game rather than the lowest remaining seed.

ESPN recently posted what a 12-team bracket would have looked like at the end of the past two seasons.