Presented by ZAMZOWS.
This Day In Sports…June 26, 2012:
The BCS presidential oversight committee announces that after years of fan angst, a four-team FBS College Football Playoff will be instituted beginning with the 2014 season. The 16-year BCS system, with two teams selected for the national championship game and others doled out to the major bowls, was heavily tilted toward the power conferences. Boise State made two BCS bowls in the 2000s (the Fiesta in 2006 and 2009) but was paired with fellow non-BCS school TCU in the second one and was left out altogether in 2008 despite an undefeated regular season.
The CFP format wove two seeded playoff semifinals into the existing major bowl games, with the national championship game created separately. Six bowls, the “New Year’s Six,” would rotate hosting the semifinals, so there would be four major bowls every year outside the playoffs, with one spot guaranteed for a Group of 5 school. Boise State would fill that slot in the first year—in the 2014 Fiesta Bowl, with a 38-30 win over Arizona.
After 10 seasons at four teams, the CFP expanded to 12 playoff spots in 2024, and Boise State was a beneficiary during Ashton Jeanty’s historic season. First-round byes were given to the four highest-ranked conference champions. The Broncos not only earned the Group of 5’s automatic entry—they were the third-highest ranked champion and were handed a bye. (Boise State, of course, would fall 31-14 to Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl.) The conference championship requirement was nixed in 2025, with the top four ranked teams overall receiving byes.
The format remains at 12 teams this year, although the automatic Group of 6 representative does not have to be a conference champion now. Beyond 2026, it’s in limbo. Expansion to either 16 or 24 teams is highly likely, but the number, as you know, has been hotly debated. Any format change for 2027 requires approval by FBS commissioners by December 1. The Big Ten and SEC are driving the train.
It’s a bottomless pit. In the BCS era, the No. 3 team was unhappy. Under the four-team CFP format, the No. 5 team felt slighted. In the current setup, the No. 13 team feels disrespected. Moving forward, it’ll be either the No. 17 or No. 25 team that is up in arms. Separately, with the ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots, there are those who wish the Group of 6 would just go away and form their own playoff. That’s not what the new Pac-12 signed up for.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
