5 bold predictions for 2024-25 College Football Playoff as NCAA finally brings 12-team format

After years of asking for it, football fans finally got an expanded College Football Playoff. The playoff after the 2024 season will be expanded to a dozen teams.

The top four teams will get a week off, while teams 5-12 play seeded match-ups for the right to face the top four teams in quarterfinal play. Semifinals and the title game will then follow. Here are five early predictions for how it could all go down.

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Five bold predictions for 2024-25 college football playoff

Mario Cristobal cold lead Miami into a lower-seed in the College Football Playoff, where the Hurricanes could be the first CFP surprise team. (Photo credit: IMAGN)

#1 College football will wonder why the expansion took so long

Plenty of pundits had bunches to say about why expanding the playoff was a bad idea. The season will be too long; it will devalue regular-season performance and deemphasize bowl games were some of the talking points.

However, the 12-team playoff will shut up most of the critics. The quality of the games, the chance to give more than four teams a shot at a title, the sheer pageantry of more top-flight football will be elecric. The haters will get awfully quiet awfully quickly.

#2 A double-digit seed will reach the semifinals

One of the reasons a two-team and a four-team title hunt stayed the same was quality. The argument went that the No. 5 team was unworthy of a title fight, much less the No. 9 team or even the No. 12.

Not only isn't that going to be proven true, but at least one of the double-digit seeds will win two games and reach the national semifinals. The gap between even the No. 1 and No. 12 team is probably comfortably less than two touchdowns in betting lines.

Some solid team - maybe Miami or Michigan or Utah - will make a deep college football playoff run from a poorer seed.

#3 Don't be surprised if all four top seed struggle in the quarterfinal round.

Conference basketball tournaments have long showed that the rest isn't all it should be.

The supposed advantage of a game off while worse seeded teams play often backfires, with a sleepy favorite against an underdog in game condition. The playoff seems likely to involve the same principle.

Above, one of the top seeds is already predicted to lose in the quarterfinals. But the other three will all have some struggles at the very least. Don't be surrpised if the move to a 16-team playoff gains steam quickly.

#4 Bowl games will be just fine

As for bowl games, most of the non-playoff games have long since teetered on irrelevancy.

However, teams ranked in the mid-teens still play solid games, and fans outside the realm of the sport's top teams will travel. Frankly, if the expanded playoff resulted in a few of the random extraneous bowls being trimmed away, it wouldn't be the worst thing.

#5 Watch out for an SEC vs. SEC title game

It might seem too obvious, but the SEC's depth will probably shine in the expanded playoff.

A year ago, Georgia and Alabama were solidly two of the nation's top four teams, but both couldn't make the playoff. This year, no such restriction will exist. Bet on two SEC teams facing off for the first new College Football Playoff title.

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What do you expect from the first 12-team College Football Playoff? Share your CFP expectations and ideas below in the comments section: