The 2025 NCAA Football season is set to mark the 12th season of the CFP (College Football Playoff) following the conclusion of the old BCS (Bowl Championship Series) format, and it is set to mark the second season of the new 12-team format.
And after the seeding process used in year number one of the 12-team bracket was heavily scrutinized for all the right reasons, the 2025 season is set to mark the first year in which the 12 playoff teams are actually ranked from No. 1 to No. 12, still featuring autobids for the top five conference champions, to set the stage for the four-round tournament.
It did not take folks long to realize that the initial 12-team format was flawed. Only two of the top eight teams in the country were seeded inside the top four, simply because the top four conference champions were guaranteed seeds No. 1 through No. 4 and the coinciding first-round byes. Beyond the top two, the seeding list looked more like a roulette wheel than a list of actual rankings.
But even with the new format set to simply rank the 12 playoff teams, Penn State head coach James Franklin still isn't satisfied, citing concerns about CFP selection committee "bias" and stating that he believes college football should return to using something along the lines of the BCS formula that was used from 1998 to 2013.
"It's funny, because I think there's all these complaints about the BCS, but then we go to this, and I think it goes back to really, my answer is, the problem is, everybody voting and everybody involved in the process — whether you want to be biased or not, we all are biased," Franklin said in a recent media availability. "I think in a lot of ways, you could make the argument a formula could be better. But we didn't love the formula. So we went to this other system.
"There are a lot of challenges. You've got East Coast people voting on this, and they haven't watched enough of the West Coast games based on the time. All the different rankings that are out there. In my mind, a formula makes the most sense because it takes the bias out that we all have."
This is a complaint that has been brought up since the dawn of the CFP era in 2014, and yes, a lot of Penn State fans are still understandably bitter about what happened in 2016, when they missed out on the four-team tournament despite winning the Big Ten title and beating the same Ohio State Buckeyes team that made it onto the bracket.
CFP formula is not the answer
Whether it's conference bias, East Coast bias, brand bias, or yes, even consideration of potential sportsbook betting spreads, there have been legitimate concerns that the bias of the very few people actually picking the teams could impact the integrity of the sport.
Yet even if a formula were used, there would still inevitably be complaints about it. There is no one-size-fits-all metric that is going to give the college football world anything better than a selection committee at this point, because the fact is that, whether we like it or not, the eye test does matter. Even in the year 2025, analytics and projections aren't everything.
Just look at ESPN's three Football Power Index metrics for 2024. FPI itself had the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Ole Mis Rebels in the top five, and neither team made it into the 12-team field. Does that mean the formula has SEC bias? Can you imagine the fallout if two three-loss SEC teams made it in?
Strength of Resume also had some questionable rankings, with the BYU Cougars at No. 7 and the four-loss LSU Tigers at No. 10. The SMU Mustangs, which got in over Alabama, were only No. 18. And then in the Efficiencies ratings, Alabama and Ole Miss were both inside the top eight.
A formula, no matter how "perfected", is not the answer. And while the BCS formula may have been a lot more polished than any of these other three, there was still a human element to it that made it imperfect.
Even Franklin is willing to admit that much.
"I also think maybe there's a way to kind of do both, and I guess you could make the argument they are doing both right now, because I think the committee uses some formulas to come up with it, which I think makes a ton of sense," he added. "I think at the end of the day, there's not going to be a perfect system."
On a more general note, I'm not really sure why we are still hearing so much talk about conference bias and brand bias, given the fact that the committee selected SMU over Alabama for the final playoff spot last year.
If anything, perhaps the committee overcompensated here to avoid such a controversy, which could be a separate problem in and of itself, after what happened in 2023 with Alabama and the Florida State Seminoles. But I digress.
James Franklin's focus on 'bias' is severely misplaced
At the end of the day, Franklin is probably the last person on Earth who should be worried about this process, and these comments prove that Penn State's focus, or at least the focus of their head coach, is severely misplaced ahead of a crucial now-or-never type of season.
Penn State was ranked No. 4 by the committee last year, which was the absolute highest they could have been ranked with their extremely lackluster resume. The committee effectively rewarded them for losing their hardest games and barely winning several games they had no business coming close to losing in the first place.
The undefeated Big Ten champion Oregon Ducks were No. 1, followed by the SEC champion Georgia Bulldogs at No. 2. There was no real debate there. The Texas Longhorns came in at No. 3, making them the top-ranked non-conference champion.
Both Penn State and Texas lost their two toughest games, with Penn State losing to Ohio State for the eighth year in a row before backing into the Big Ten title game and predictably losing to Oregon, while Texas lost twice to Georgia, with the second loss coming in the SEC title game.
But Texas had four wins over top 25 teams away from home, while Penn State had one win over a top 25 team, and it came at Beaver Stadium.
I genuinely do not understand why the topic of committee bias, of all things, is something that Franklin is spending the time thinking about, much less publicly addressing, especially with the kind of roster he has in 2025.
If anything, you could make the case that brand bias, or Big Ten bias at the very least, is why Penn State was ranked as high as they were in 2024.
Franklin has not beaten a team ranked inside the top five in almost nine years, and last year, he added three more losses to a record that now sits at an abysmal 1-14 against top five teams as Penn State's head coach.
Even after the first two losses, Penn State was clearly not the fourth-best team in the country. Their best win of the year came against the No. 19 Illinois Fighting Illini, which is one of only two regular season wins over top 25 teams they have to their credit since 2023, and it was not exactly a pretty win, either.
Ironically, Penn State actually got a bit of a cakewalk playoff path because of the original seeding format. As the second-ranked non-conference champion, they were the No. 6 seed, not No. 4. They opened up the CFP with a blowout win over No. 11 SMU, before facing off against the No. 3 Boise State Broncos, despite Boise State actually being ranked No. 9.
Their run ended with a loss to the No. 7 Notre Dame Fighting Irish, technically ranked as a top five team, in the Orange Bowl.
To put that path into perspective, Ohio State's national championship run included four consecutive wins over teams ranked inside the top seven. Yes, Ryan Day beat twice as many top seven teams in the span of a month as Franklin has beaten in 11 years at Penn State.
Under the new format, Penn State actually loses the last bit of leeway they once had, unless Franklin can finally beat a good team during the regular season. Last year, they would have been seeded No. 4, and Notre Dame would have been No. 5. Penn State would have gotten a first-round bye and then been one-and-done, with the Notre Dame loss simply coming one round earlier than it came in reality.
Claiming selection committee 'bias' is beating a dead horse
While there are already talks about an expanded 16-team format, it pretty much goes without saying that if you are ranked 13th in a 12-team format, you clearly had your chances, and you failed to take advantage of them. This isn't bias in any way, shape, of form; it's a fact.
Just ask Alabama. Sure, they probably would have beaten SMU, a team that coasted to the ACC title game, where they lost to the Clemson Tigers, without having to play Clemson or the Miami Hurricanes during the regular season.
Maybe they even would have beaten Penn State, had they been given the nod over SMU instead; who knows?
But despite beating Georgia, they completely blew it with mind-boggling regular season losses to the unranked Vanderbilt Commodores and the Oklahoma Sooners.
They had multiple golden chances to seal a playoff spot and didn't take advantage of any of them, and the same can be said for other teams just below the cut line, such as Miami, Ole Miss, and the South Carolina Gamecocks.
These teams didn't miss the playoffs because of bias, and whether it's Alabama, Penn State, or some other non-power conference team, the fact remains that if you simply control what you can control, you take everything you can possibly take out of the committee's hands. Bottom line, you're in.
There is, of course, still a human element to the final rankings, but the accusations of bias continue to be baseless, especially after the seeding modification was made to adjust for last year's flaws.
It's now or never for James Franklin and Penn State
This season, Penn State's regular season schedule is undoubtedly tougher, at least on paper, than it was last year, and the fact that the Nittany Lions are ranked No. 1 in ESPN's way-too-early top 25 rankings only adds pressure on them to get the job done, which is another reason why Franklin's focus on the selection committee is totally misdirected.
They are scheduled to play both Oregon (No. 8) and Ohio State (No. 5), the former at home and the latter in Columbus, where Franklin is still winless, and you never know which other Big Ten opponents on their schedule may spring an Indiana Hoosiers-like surprise in 2025.
If Franklin and company can't handle business in at least one of those two marquee games, they have zero ground to stand on when it comes to selection committee bias, should they either not get into the playoffs at all or find themselves seeded lower than they feel they deserve to be seeded.
And their recent history against top-tier teams suggests it will indeed be an uphill battle.
Perhaps that uphill battle is what their head coach should be a lot more focused on at this stage of the offseason.