The news of the College Football Playoffs deciding to eliminate automatic bids into the 12-team playoff field shook up the college football world yesterday. It removes champions from the major conferences and goes to "straight seeding," as in the committee will decide the 12 seeds, and the bracket will be set accordingly. The change will be drastic. Look at the difference it would have made just this last season in the example below.
Comparing the real 2024 CFP bracket with one under the new seeding format 👀 pic.twitter.com/AkW9g8ZGey
— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) May 22, 2025
Wisconsin fans should care about the new seeding model for the College Football Playoff
The news for Badgers fans was mostly met with "ho-hum." Why? Because the Badgers aren't relevant for the College Football Playoff, but actually, that's wrong. Sure, they weren't even close the last couple of years, but it was only a few short years ago that this would have mattered a lot, and it could matter very soon.
Notice how many Big Ten teams are in the examples above? Four teams. The Badgers have finished inside the top four in the Big two times in the last six years. 2019 is maybe the best example when they lost to Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship game. However, you could argue that Wisconsin also finished in the hunt for a playoff birth (if they had a 12-team field) in the 2021 season when their final record was 9-4 and 6-3 in the Big Ten.
This means that for a 12-team playoff straight seeding format, finishing toward the top of the Big Ten is how you get in. Get in, make some noise, and win the championship. Yes, it feels far-fetched coming off a five-win season and about to go into the hardest Big Ten schedule in all of the conference. However, that brutal schedule may be the very reason this change matters. Take care of the wins you're supposed to have, knock off a few unsuspecting teams, and who knows?
Optimism and on Wisconsin!