5-7 model approved for 12-team College Football Playoff for 2024 season
The Oklahoma Sooners would have snuck into the College Football Playoff in 2023 if it were 12 teams. Now, the path is clear for the Sooners to qualify for the new expanded CFP as Oklahoma heads to the SEC.
By Josh Yourish
The 2023 season for Brent Venables and the Oklahoma Sooners felt like a disappointment after they fell out of playoff contention, but next year that won’t be the case. The College Football Playoff is expanding to 12 teams and on Tuesday, the College Football Playoff Board of Managers announced the criteria for the 12-qualifiers in 2024 and beyond.
The CFP will adopt a 5-7 model in which the five highest-ranked conference champions will automatically qualify for the playoff while the remaining seven spots will be decided by the College Football Playoff committee.
Chair of the CFP Board of Managers, Dr. Mark Keenum, President of Mississippi State said, “This is a very logical adjustment for the College Football Playoff based on the evolution of our conference structures since the board first adopted this new format in September 2022.”
The evolution he’s referring to is the death of the Pac-12. That development allowed the CFP committee to abandon a once-rumored 6-6 model which would guarantee a spot for the Group of Five, but now a 5-7 model accomplishes that as well. With the Pac-12 out of the way, the highest-ranked G5 conference champ will get one of the 12 spots.
With that model in place in 2023, Oklahoma would have been the final playoff qualifier, but if Washington and Oregon were treated as Big Ten teams instead of Pac-12 then Liberty would have bumped the Sooners for the last seat at the table.
Still, this is good news for Oklahoma, a program that will likely take a loss here or there in the loaded SEC, because a two-loss team can easily still climb into the top 12 or top 11.