CFP Rankings: Alabama barely hangs on, Miami on outside looking in
There is big movement in the final College Football Playoff ranking before the conference championships and Dan Wolken is here to break it down.
Sports Pulse
The College Football Playoff committee has decisions to make Sunday morning before it announces which 12 teams will compete for this season’s national championship.
While Arizona State, Georgia and Oregon won their conference championship games on Saturday, others were left waiting to see where they would be placed in the bracket as an at-large team.
The first-round games will be played at the home team’s venue and the quarterfinal games will be played at the site of traditional bowl games, such as the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl.
Here’s everything you need to know about the College Football Playoff ranking show and what teams will be playing in bowl games to end the 2024 season.
Watch the CFP Rankings Show on ESPN with a Fubo subscription
Bracket – first-round games
The final College Football Playoff rankings of the 2024 season will be released Sunday, Dec. 8 with a CFP selection show to announce the 12-team playoff field.
Here is the schedule for the College Football Playoff rankings show. All times are Eastern:
The College Football Playoff rankings show will air on ESPN, with the broadcast starting at 12 p.m. ET on Sunday, Dec. 8. Fans can also stream the show on Fubo.
This season, there are 12 teams in the College Football Playoff for the first time. College football previously introduced the CFP in 2014 with a four-team format. The expansion to 12 teams is set in place for the 2024 and 2025 college football seasons. Leaders within the sport have not agreed to the framework of the playoff beyond that at this point.
The 12 participating teams in the College Football Playoff bracket will be the five conference champions ranked highest by the CFP selection committee, and the next seven highest-ranked teams.
The four highest-ranked conference champions will be seeded one through four and receive a first-round bye. The fifth conference champion will be seeded where it was ranked among the top 12 teams, or at No. 12 if it is outside the top 12 in the CFP rankings. Non-conference champions ranked in the top four will be seeded beginning at No. 5.
“Because of this,” the CFP warns on its website, “the seeding, 1 through 12, could look different than the final rankings.”
For the first round, the higher-ranked team in each pairing (5 vs. 12, 6 vs. 11, 7 vs. 10, 8 vs. 9) will serve as host on campus. The winners advance to the quarterfinals and match up with the corresponding top-four conference champion based on seeding. Quarterfinal games will played at the Fiesta Bowl, Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. The semifinals – played at the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl Classic – will take place Jan. 9-10.
The two semifinal winners will play for the national championship Jan. 20 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. — Mark Giannotto
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