The latest update to the College Football Playoff is good news for Alabama football, the rest of the SEC, and the Big Ten.
On Thursday, College Football Playoff executives unanimously approved a straight seeding model for the playoff, effective immediately. That means that automatic byes are a thing of the past, and seeding will be solely based on where teams are ranked in the final poll.
In the first year of the expanded playoff system, the top four seeds - and subsequent first-round byes - were given to the four highest-ranked conference champions. Now, the top four seeds will be the top four ranked teams in the final playoff poll.
That would have meant major changes to last season's playoff. The SEC and Big Ten would have received two byes each, with Texas and Penn State joining Oregon and Georgia with first-round byes instead of Boise State and Arizona State.
This would have also given the No. 1 seeded Oregon Ducks a more favorable draw in the playoff. Instead of facing eventual National Champion Ohio State in the quarterfinals, the Ducks would have drawn the winner of Indiana and Bosie State instead. They could have avoided Ohio State until the National Championship Game with the Buckeyes on the other side of the bracket at No. 6.
The move is a common-sense change to the new system. Not all conferences are created equally, something that is widely being agreed upon, with forthcoming further changes to the playoff that will give more automatic bids to the SEC and Big Ten.
It's also good news for Notre Dame. As an independent, the Irish had no path to a first-round bye in the playoff under the old rules.
The SEC and Big Ten will benefit the most from the straight-seeding model
Per Kevin Scarbinsky of AL.com, unsurprisingly, the SEC and Big Ten would have received the most byes in a straight-seeding model since 2011:
If anything, those numbers will likely become even more lopsided as the future moves on. We have a power-4 in college football right now, but everyone knows it's really a power-2. The SEC and Big Ten wield more influence than everyone else.
Now, the path to a National Championship just got a little bit cleaner for the schools who don't win a conference title.