From the rubble of Georgia’s 65-7 national championship win over Texas Christian University in 2023, the college football overlords have heard our cries and provided us fans with a new glorious playoff system.

Gone are the deserving but snubbed teams excluded from the previous four-team playoff format; gone are the complaints from fans whose undefeated teams get decimated in their bowl game the following week. The new playoff system will allow 12 teams to compete and see who truly has the best football program in the nation.

From 2014 to this year, the four teams chosen to play were selected by the College Football Playoff Selection Committee (CFP). This use of the committee led to a decade of perceived bias and outroar as the more popular conference champions from the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and Big Ten were often picked over the Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) champions. The most recent example of this is the ACC Champions, the undefeated 2023 Florida State University Seminoles, being left out of the 2023 playoffs in favor of the nearly undefeated SEC Champions, Alabama.

The new format guarantees the five highest-ranked conference champions an automatic bid into the playoffs, regardless of how strong each conference is. The top four highest-ranked teams will also receive a first-round bye, a scheduled period without a game, advancing them straight to the quarter-finals. This structure will likely allow each conference champion in the Power Four to have a bye, letting at least one Group of Five team into the playoffs.

This change marks an interesting precedent as the Group of Five conferences, typically considered inferior to the Power Four conferences, have only had one team represent them in the College Football Playoffs: the undefeated 2021 Cincinnati team. The remaining seven teams are chosen by the CFP committee.

Texas emerges as the state with the most benefit from the new 12-team playoff format. With three teams that have a high chance of making the playoffs, Texas sets a national high.

Texas A&M:

With the third-highest chance of qualifying for the College Football Playoffs out of all Texas schools, Texas A&M still hopes to sneak into the playoffs. Currently ranked No. 15 by the AP poll and the CFP committee, the Aggies find themselves within the playoff bubble. With season-defining wins against then-No. 10 Missouri and then-No. 8 Louisiana State University (LSU), the Aggies were making strides since their opening-day loss to then-No. 7 Notre Dame. However, as the Aggies continue to move full steam ahead, their recent game at South Carolina presented a speed bump threatening to derail the rest of their season. Following an offensive explosion behind redshirt freshman quarterback Marcel Reed against LSU, the Aggies stalled out in Columbia. Behind offensive line and defensive struggles due to missed tackles, A&M was blown out in a 44-20 loss. With that loss, the Aggies dropped to 5-1 but remain in contention for the SEC championship.

How the Aggies can still make it:

Win out. Simply put, that’s all the Aggies can do now. With an 8-2 overall record, A&M’s chance of making the playoffs disappear with another loss. They have two games remaining on their schedule. Their next game against Auburn is, by definition, a must-win, but it should prove to be a cakewalk. Auburn has a 4-6 record and only one conference win. With a 9-2 record, the Aggies’ final regular season game against UT Austin will make or break their season. A win against the Longhorns would qualify A&M for the SEC championship, and another win in the conference championship would then give the Aggies an automatic bid into the playoffs.

Southern Methodist University:

SMU has shocked the world in its first season as a Power 4 in over two decades. After making a shocking jump from the American Athletic Conference, the Mustangs forfeited nine years of their television revenue, equivalent to nearly $200 million, to join the ACC. The decision seems to have paid off, as they sit atop the ACC with a 6-0 conference record. With a 9-1 overall record, SMU is also in contention to make the playoffs even without being a conference champion. Considering that their only loss was to a then-undefeated and former top 10 BYU team, they are well on track.

How the Mustangs can still make it:

SMU has a much better chance of making the playoffs than A&M, as ESPN calculates a 41.3 % chance of making the playoffs. SMU has two foreseeable paths to the College Football Playoffs. It can either win the ACC championship (the most likely outcome), or it can win the remainder of its regular season games and hope that the CFP committee chooses it as one of the seven non-conference champions.

While it currently holds an undefeated conference record, SMU still has two more games to play against University of Virginia and Cal, also known as UC Berkeley. However, these will be relatively easy matchups and the Mustangs will waltz into the conference championship and face the winner of the Miami vs. Clemson tiebreaker. A hard fight in the ACC championship might mean an automatic bid into the playoffs.

Alternatively, if SMU makes it to the conference championship but loses in a close game to Miami, it falls into the horde of good teams seeking to get into the playoffs as an at-large, a team that did not win its conference championship but is eligible to be selected by the committee. Also consider that a two-loss SEC team is more likely to make the playoffs than a two-loss SMU team, as the SEC has been informally recognized as part of the “Power Two” with the Big 10. SMU would then need to pray that BYU, its only loss, finishes undefeated to give the appearance of a quality loss. The rest is up to the college football gods to decide who enters as a non-conference champion.

Texas:

After falling short to Washington in last year’s College Football Playoffs, the Longhorns seem poised to make another return to the College Football Playoffs. Texas is ranked third in both the AP and CFP polls, due to both Georgia and Miami losing in week 11. This leaves the team as a near lock to be in the College Football Playoffs, with ESPN’s football power index giving them a 93.2 % chance on top of their 9-1 record.

How the Longhorns can still make it:

The cleanest way for Texas to advance to the college football playoffs involves one key game, a win against A&M in the Lone Star Showdown to cap off the regular season. Following Tennessee’s loss to Georgia, Texas and A&M are the only two teams in the SEC with one conference loss. Assuming that Texas stomps Kentucky in the manner that they beat Arkansas, a victory over A&M would keep them out of the pile of 6-2 SEC teams to secure a spot in the championship game. With a victory in the SEC championship game, they will receive a bye in the first round of the conference playoffs.

However, if UT Austin loses at Kyle Field, then the playoff pondering begins. The SEC championship would then be between A&M and the winner of a complex tiebreaker between Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Ole Miss. Considering Georgia thrashed Texas while Alabama and Ole Miss beat the Bulldogs, Texas’s playoff hopes via the SEC Championship look muddled. However, Alabama’s loss to unranked Vanderbilt and Kentucky’s ugly victory over Ole Miss may give Texas enough leverage to make it to the playoffs as an at-large.