On Tuesday, the College Football Playoff confirmed the inevitable. With the Pac-12 essentially dissolving, the shiny new postseason that will begin this upcoming year was altered before it could ever really start.
And just like that, the future of the sport, at least for the time being, was crystalized.
The five highest-ranked conference champions and seven at-large teams will now make up the 12-team postseason. Originally, the format provided the six highest-ranked conference champions access.
The destruction of the Pac-12, however, altered those plans.
"This is a very logical adjustment for the College Football Playoff based on the evolution of our conference structures since the board first adopted this new format in September 2022," Mark Keenum, Mississippi State president and chair of the CFP Board of Managers, said in a statement.