Oregon would have had much better chance to win national championship under new CFP rules

The College Football Playoff has made a big change that will go into effect for the 2025-2026 season, and it’s one that likely would have benefited the Oregon Ducks had it been in place for last season.

The CFP on Thursday made a change to a straight seeding model beginning with the upcoming season. You may recall that Boise State and Arizona State really lucked out thanks to the old model. Boise State had been ranked 9th in the final CFP rankings and ASU was 12th. Yet they both received big bumps up when the brackets came out due to the old rules rewarding conference champions.

Penn State really lucked out with the old rules because they got to face the No. 10 team (SMU) and No. 9 team (Boise State) in their first two games.

Oregon got a first-round bye, but due to the changes, they had to face the winner of the Ohio State-Tennessee game in the second round, which was really the No. 6 vs. No. 7 matchup. They also were set to play Texas in the semifinal even though Texas was the No. 3 team in the seedings.

In a traditional tournament-style event with seedings respected, Oregon would have had a bye in the first round and then would have faced the 8/9 winner between Indiana and Boise State. They then would have been in line to face the (5) Notre Dame-(4) Penn State winner in the semifinals. Oregon would have had the type of path that Penn State lucked into.

None of this absolves Oregon from no-showing in their game against Ohio State. But if the seedings had been done according to the final rankings, the Ducks would have been facing lower-ranked teams. They would have received the benefits that Penn State lucked into receiving.