College Football Playoff Selection Committee Prepares for 2025-26 Season
The CFP selection committee refined its evaluation tools and procedures for 2025, including: stronger weighting for schedule strength, a new record strength metric that emphasizes wins over high-quality opponents, and an updated recusal policy distinguishing full vs. partial recusals. New-member orientation shifts to October. Seeding in the 12-team Playoff is based on the final ranking, with the four highest-ranked teams receiving byes and the five highest-ranked conference champions guaranteed bids.
The College Football Playoff (CFP) selection committee met recently in preparation for the upcoming season. Following the first year of the 12-team Playoff, the meeting marked the culmination of six months of offseason work reviewing the committee’s policies, procedures and data analytics to ensure the group is equipped with the best resources available when ranking the country’s top 25 college football teams.
As a part of these offseason efforts, the CFP convened two groups, a data analytics panel and a membership panel to assess these areas. Following months of work, these groups reviewed their proposed modifications with the CFP management committee and selection committee.
Changes for the upcoming season include enhancements to the tools that the selection committee uses to assess schedule strength and how teams perform against their schedule. The current schedule strength metric has been adjusted to apply greater weight to games against strong opponents. An additional metric, record strength, has been added to the selection committee’s analysis to go beyond a team’s schedule strength to assess how a team performed against that schedule. This metric rewards teams defeating high-quality opponents while minimizing the penalty for losing to such a team. Conversely, these changes will provide minimal reward for defeating a lower-quality opponent while imposing a greater penalty for losing to such a team.
Procedural changes for this year include an update to the recusal policy to establish two separate distinctions: a full recusal, consistent with the previous policy; and a partial recusal, which allows selection committee members to remain in the room for the discussion of teams they are partially recused from, but continue to prevent them from voting during those rounds.
At the direction of the CFP management committee, the membership panel also reviewed the movement of idle teams from the penultimate to final ranking. The selection committee reaffirmed that movement in the final week should be evidence-based and did not recommend creating a formal policy prohibiting such movement.
Finally, the selection committee will move its new member orientation session from September to October when all 13 members will convene to review the first eight weeks of the season and familiarize themselves with the computer systems they will use for the voting process beginning in November. No ranking or voting will be conducted during this meeting.
These changes follow the CFP management committee’s spring decision to modify the seeding and bye policies of the 12-team Playoff. The new policy will guarantee the five highest-ranked conference champions a place in the Playoff but will no longer include a bye for the four highest-ranked champions. Seeding will now be based directly on the final ranking of the CFP selection committee, with the four highest-ranked teams receiving a first-round bye.
“All of these modifications will help the selection committee as they rank the top 25 teams,” said Rich Clark, executive director of the College Football Playoff. “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.”
The selection committee will announce its first of six rankings on November 4. The committee members will convene in person on Mondays and Tuesdays, revealing their rankings each week on ESPN.
The final selection committee rankings of the 2025 season will be released on Selection Day, Sunday, December 7. At that time, the committee will also announce the 12-team Playoff bracket pairings and game sites.
Below is a complete schedule for the selection committee to announce its rankings on ESPN:
Below is the full modified recusal policy as approved by the CFP management committee:
A member shall be deemed fully recused from the evaluation of a team if the member: (a) receives direct compensation from the institution in question; or (b) has an immediate family member who is a football student-athlete, football staff member, or senior administrator at the institution. A fully recused member shall not participate in any vote concerning the team, nor shall the member be present during any deliberations related to the team’s ranking or placement into the postseason bracket.
A member shall be deemed partially recused if the member has a secondary relationship with the institution (e.g., an immediate family member employed by the institution, but outside of the football program or senior administration). A partially recused member may remain present and participate in discussions related to the team but shall not be allowed to participate in votes involving the team in question.
The CFP’s executive director shall have the authority to impose a partial recusal if he or she determines that a non-compensated institutional affiliation (e.g., alumnus/alumna, former player, former administrator or former coach) exists that could reasonably be perceived to compromise the impartiality of the selection committee member in question.
Recusals for the 2025-26 football season are as follows:
