Matt Rhule and the Nebraska football team know the job ahead of them. On Tuesday morning, the College Football Playoff committee announced the new official format for the playoffs this fall.
The format needed to be changed because of the absolute implosion of the Pac-12 and the scattering to the winds of the teams that used to make up that conference. That includes schools like USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington, who all fled to the Big Ten.
With just four “power” conferences left standing, the CFP committee decided it needed to find a new way to ensure the best teams made it into the field of 12 as often as possible. On Tuesday, they rolled out their solution in what they called the 5-7 Format.
This new approach has the four top-ranked conference champions getting a first-round bye. While it’s not a guarantee that the Big Ten champ will be among those four, it’s clear by the number of teams that they believe the Power 4 will get those spots.
After those four, the number 5-12 teams will play games at the higher-ranked schools' home. That means a program ranked 5th will play a home playoff game against the 12th-ranked squad. The 6th seed will host the 11th, the 7th seed will host the 10th, and the 8th seed will host the 9th.
The second and third rounds of the playoffs will take place in the New Year’s Six bowl games. Then, the championship game will be hosted at a neutral site.
Nebraska football: New CFP format clarifies the task ahead
It sounds ridiculous to talk about Nebraska football and the new playoff format coming off so many consecutive losing seasons. But it also stands to reason that this format will be around for a while. Leaning into team rankings rather than conference alignment seems structured to stick around even if more realignment comes through.
If everything goes right, it certainly doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that the Nebraska football team could be ranked 12th at the end of a season in the not-too-distant future. And if and when they are, we now know how their road through the playoffs will shape up.