ATHENS — Perhaps it’s only appropriate the first set of College Football Playoff rankings will come out next Tuesday night, as the nation’s presidential election gets decided.

After all, 2024 has represented a whole new world and direction for collegiate football.

New CFP executive director Rich Clark, a 38-year Air Force veteran chosen last November to replace the retired Bill Hancock, spent time with AJC-DawgNation and others on a national zoom call on Wednesday to review and explain how the newly-expanded 12-team playoffs will operate moving forward.

Last year was the final year of the four-team College Football Playoffs, which began in 2014.

It is indeed a new collegiate football landscape, with such significant changes as NIL dealings and player free agency amid four realigned “Power 4″ and “Group of 5″ conferences.

There’s sure to be plenty of conjecture and controversy before the final rankings are revealed on Dec. 8, the day after the conferences hold their championship games.

Data points and metrics

Clark made it clear that strength of schedule — as determined and provided by Sports Source Analytics — will factor heavily among the many metrics the 13-member CFP committee will rely on in determine the playoff seedings and rankings.

“That is a very important metric, it’s not the only metric, (but) it’s one that cross-cuts across conferences and team schedules,” Clark said, “and it gives us a look so we can compare teams more accurately based on their strength of schedule. It helps us to look at teams in a more fair manner.”

Clark indicated that, while the formula for determining strength of schedule formula is not completely transparent, it takes into account the team’s opponents’ records, as well the record of the opponents’ opponents, (capped) margin of victory and location of games — similar to the RPI formula that has been utilized in seeding the more expansive NCAA basketball tournaments.

Clark said the committee will meet as a group to watch games this weekend for the first time, and they will continue using the “12 or so key metrics, what the best teams should be judged on” in determining a pecking order.

This year, the 13-member committee, made up of six athletic directors and seven-at large members (journalists, former coaches and former players) have been issued I-Pads where games have been truncated to 45 minutes, so that committee members can more easily review game footage.

CFP format review

To review, the four top-ranked conference champs will earn first-round byes — regardless of where they are ranked — with the next-highest ranked conference champ receiving a spot in the 12-team bracket regardless of where it’s ranked.

The remaining seven teams will be chosen at-large, via the CFP rankings, and be seeded in order accordingly.

Teams seeded No. 5 through No. 8 will host first-round playoff games on campus — or a designated “home” site of their choosing — against the teams seeded No. 9 through No. 12 in games played on Dec. 20 (8 p.m.) and Dec. 21 (12 p.m., 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.).

The winners of those first-round games will advance to play in the pre-designated New Year’s Day bowl sites utilized in the past.

This year, the quarterfinals will be played in the Fiesta Bowl (7:30 p.m., Dec. 31), the Peach Bowl (1 p.m. Jan. 1), the Rose Bowl (5 p.m., Jan. 1) and the Sugar Bowl (8:45 p.m.).

The semifinals will take place at the Orange Bowl (7:30 p.m., Jan. 9) and the Cotton Bowl (7:30 p.m., Jan. 10), leading up to the CFP National Championship Game at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 20.

Brett Daniels, CFP spokesman said that the quarterfinal teams will be assigned to semifinals “based on proximity” — the top-seeded teams will play at the sites closed to them unless a top-seeded team was put at a “blatantly obvious” or “fairly significant” disadvantage, which could then be taken into consideration.

Otherwise, the CFP would “not look for feedback from the schools on their preferred locations.”

It might all seem a bit overwhelming for those who haven’t followed the CFP’s evolution closely, which is why Clark took some time out to answer some key questions.

Questions about the new 12-team CFP

How will CFP committee determine its rankings?

Clark made it clear the committee will continue assessing several data points and statisical factors, also taking into account team’s injuries and the subjective “eye test” continuing to play a role.

“Record matters but we’re not trying to pick the most deserving teams, we’re trying to pick the best teams,” Clark said, perhaps alluding to the CFP selection committee principles applied last year that led to an undefeated Florida State team being left out of the four-team CFP in favor of other one-loss Power 5 conference champions on account of the Seminoles’ starting quarterback being out for the season with an injury.

“This committee has got to look at their entire body of work, (and) they’re going to consider record, of course,” he said. “But they’re going to look at strength of schedule, they’re going to look at head-to-head competition, (and) how teams perform against each other.”

How would a Group of 5 champion (or any conference champ) be seeded in the bracket if it is outside the top 12 in the final CFP rankings?

Any conference champ ranked outside the Top 12 would be the No. 12 seed if it falls outside of the top 12 teams in the final CFP rankings.

If the lowest-ranked conference champ is ranked higher than No. 12, it will be seeded in accordance with its ranking.

So, a No. 9-ranked conference champ (with four conference champs ranked higher) would be seeded ninth, a No. 8-ranked conference champ would be seeded eighth.

How are teams assigned to sites in the CFP quarterfinals?

The SEC champion and Big Ten champion have automatic site assignments as part of a previous contractual agreement that runs through 2026.

The SEC champion will play in the Sugar Bowl against a first-round winner, and the Big Ten champion will play in the Rose Bowl against a first-round winner.

Proximity will determine who plays in the quarterfinal games in the Peach Bowl and Fiesta Bowl, with teams playing at the site closest to their location.

Current standings indicate the ACC champion will play in the Peach Bowl against a first-round CFP winner, while the Big 12 champion will play in the Fiesta Bowl against a first-round CFP winner.

How are teams assigned to the CFP semifinal sites, the Cotton Bowl and the Orange Bowl?

Clark said the top-seeded team to emerge from the CFP quarterfinals “gets consideration to the semifinals,” meaning the team would play in the semifinal closest to it campus, in Arlington, Texas (Cotton Bowl) or Miami Gardens, Fla., (Orange Bowl).

Will the loser of a conference championship game be penalized in the eyes of the committee, perhaps slipping in the final CFP rankings below a team from the same conference that did not play in that conference championship game?

“That’s something we talked about with the committee members … in the discussion, what I realized is they are sophisticated enough to know that in a conference e championship you have the top two teams in a conference playing and the third-place team is sitting out and not putting it on the table and risking a loss.

“All wins aren’t created equal, and all losses aren’t created equal, either. It depends on what the loss looks like, it depends on who we are talking about as the third-place team.

“I honestly don’t think a team would be unduly penalized if they lost in a conference championship game.”

Will making a championship game be considered a data point among the committee’s evaluation in ranking the teams?

“I don’t think just the virtue that they made it to the championship game is the data point — I think the data point is how did they perform in that conference championship game,” Clark said. “The committee will look at that, will have watched the game and judged them against that opponent.

“But I wouldn’t say they get extra points because they were in the conference championship game, but certainly their road to get to the championship game will give them a boost….”

Will the committee consider the potential for teams having a rematch from the regular season when determining the CFP rankings?

“We’re not going to manipulate how the bracket gets laid out or the seedings to avoid rematches. If they happen naturally, they just happen. I imagine we’re going to see some of that in this playoff. You could see teams play each other three times; they might play each other in the regular season, they might play each other in the conference championship and then they could see each other somewhere in the playoff but we’re not gonna change the seeding to avoid those rematches. We’re going to seed them how they are ranked, and bracket them how they are seeded.

“That’s the rule set the commissioners have laid out.

Once the rankings happen, a lot of the decision-making gets taking out of the hands of the committee and then it just goes by the protocol the commissioner have established for the committee members.”