The College Football Playoff has updated its selection process, putting greater focus on teams’ strength-of-schedule as the committee prepares for the 2025-26 postseason. The changes were announced after a six-month review of policies and procedures by the selection committee.
Under these new rules, conference champions will continue to qualify automatically for the postseason, but all twelve teams in the playoff will be seeded by the selection committee. A main update is that strength-of-schedule now plays a larger role when determining the top programs across college football.
Record strength is also being emphasized. This means wins against high-quality opponents will count more heavily in a team’s favor, while victories over lower-quality teams will have less influence. Losses are assessed with more context: defeats to strong opponents will not be penalized as much, whereas losses to weaker teams will carry greater weight.
Changes have also been made to how conflicts of interest are managed within the selection committee. In addition to full recusals — where members are excluded from any discussion or voting involving specific teams — there are now partial recusals. Partially recused members can observe discussions but may not vote on those particular teams.
This year’s eight fully recused members include Hunter Yurachek (Appalachian State and Arkansas), Mack Rhoades (Baylor), David Sayler (Miami OH), Mark Dantonio (Michigan State), Chris Massaro (Middle Tennessee State), Troy Dannen (Nebraska), Chris Ault (Nevada), and Carla Williams (Virginia). Those partially recused this cycle include Yurachek for SMU, Ault for UCLA, Randall McDaniel for Arkansas State, Jeff Long for Arkansas, Ivan Maisel for Notre Dame and Stanford, Wesley Walls for Ole Miss, and Mike Riley for Oregon State.
Newly appointed committee members will meet through September and October to learn about voting procedures and examine performances from the season’s first eight weeks.
“All of these modifications will help the selection committee as they rank the top 25 teams (…) We feel these changes will help construct a postseason bracket that recognizes the best performances and teams on the field during the regular season, and I want to thank our veteran selection committee members and data analytics groups for helping implement these changes,” said executive director of the CFP Rich Clark.
The playoff ranking announcements begin in November with five updates preceding Selection Day in December. Rankings debut Nov. 4 at 8 p.m., followed by Nov. 11 at 7 p.m., Nov. 18 at 8:30 p.m., Nov. 25 at 7 p.m., then Dec. 2 at 7 p.m., before final rankings on Selection Day Dec. 7 between noon and 3 p.m.
