PROTEST PLAYOFF 2022: Selection Sunday - Kansas City Sports Today

Big 12 Championship - Kansas State v TCU — What sort of mayhem and havoc could this team have wreaked if they had been allowed into the current playoff structure as an automatic bid champion? Check in daily this week to find out! | Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images

In which BracketCat analyzes a variety of data from the 2022 16-team playoff simulation and draws conclusions.

Welcome to the third Selection Sunday of the new Protest Playoff!

For this first section of playoff recreations (2014-2024), this will be pretty easy. We have the committee’s final CFP rankings for each year and can seed off those, along with champions.

In case you’ve already forgotten, the final CFP rankings for the 2024 season were (conference champions designated by asterisks):

Georgia* (13-0)
Michigan* (13-0)
TCU (12-1)
Ohio State (11-1)
Alabama (10-2)
Tennessee (10-2)
Clemson* (11-2)
Utah* (10-3)
Kansas State* (10-3)
USC (11-2)
Penn State (10-2)
Washington (10-2)
Florida State (9-3)
Oregon State (9-3)
Oregon (9-3)
Tulane* (11-2)
LSU (9-4)
UCLA (9-3)
South Carolina (8-4)
Texas (8-4)
Notre Dame (8-4)
Mississippi State (8-4)
NC State (8-4)
Troy* (11-2)
UTSA (11-2)

Other teams who made appearances in the CFP rankings in November and/or December, but could not stay in the final set, included Cincinnati (9-4), Illinois (8-5), Kentucky (7-6), Louisville (8-5), North Carolina (9-5), Oklahoma State (7-6), Ole Miss (8-5), Syracuse (7-6), UCF (9-5) and Wake Forest (8-5).

Our Actual Field: 16 Teams, 5+11 Model

Under this model, the five* highest ranked conference champions — Georgia (SEC), Michigan (Big Ten), Clemson (ACC), Utah (Pac-12), and Kansas State (Big 12) — all would receive automatic bids, even though only two of them made the actual four-team playoff.

But seeding and byes are not tied to championship status, a decision that matches the one already reached for the 2025 12-team playoff after just one year of a flawed seeding process almost no one (outside of the ACC, Big 12 or Mountain West conferences) liked very much.

The remaining 11 teams* are drawn from the highest-ranked remaining schools in the committee’s final playoff rankings, yielding the following list of national seeds for PP 2022:

Georgia
Michigan
TCU
Ohio State
Alabama
Tennessee
Clemson
Utah
Kansas State
USC
Penn State
Washington
Florida State
Oregon State
Oregon
Tulane

Unlike in 2023, our field does match the top 16 teams, as it did in 2024. It’s nice to see that Tulane would have made it in under either approach (top 16 or the 6*+10 model I’m using).

Other than 9-3 UCLA and a pair of two-loss mid-majors at the bottom of the CFP rankings, nobody left out had fewer than four losses. Perfection!

It is worth noting here the greatest deviation between this model and the one I used in my 2009 series of posts: I included all 10 conference champions and only had six remaining at-large teams. While this is the more egalitarian model in terms of widening national participation across multiple levels of FBS, it is entirely unrealistic — even more so now that the P4 (and especially the B1G and SEC) continue to pull away financially.

However, for those who care, under that model Fresno State (MWC), Toledo (MAC), Troy (Sun Belt), and UTSA (C-USA) would replace Washington, Florida State, Oregon State and Oregon (Tulane still makes it in as the AAC champion and actually would move up to No. 12).

(*For those of you wondering why the Group of 5 does not have an “automatic” bid, remember: You are conflating their highest-ranked conference champion, part of the five mentioned above, with their “non-power” status. This occurred following the dissolution of the Pac-12. Prior to that, the model under discussion for a 12-team playoff was a 6+6 model, and I am going to proceed under the assumption that this would occur in a 16-team Power 5 field as well. But this is not technically written into the 12- or 16-team rules as they stand.)

Alternate Field: 16 Teams, Conference Auto-Bid Model

If the Big Ten’s preferred plan were applied instead, these would be your 16 teams (those in bold received the conference or G5 auto-bids; the rest are at-large selections):

Georgia (SEC)
Michigan (B1G)
TCU (Big 12)
Ohio State (B1G)
Alabama (SEC)
Tennessee (SEC)
Clemson (ACC)
Utah
Kansas State (Big 12)
USC
Penn State (B1G)
Washington
Florida State (ACC)
Tulane (G5)
LSU (SEC)
Illinois (B1G)

This year’s model is the perfect illustration of why the Big Ten’s 4-4-2-2-1 proposal sucks ass.

It’s hard to speculate how this would have worked with a functional Pac-12, so I just left them in an at-large category instead of having to figure out any new conference quotas.

The Pac-12 had an unusually strong year and claimed every single at-large spot, but instead of also getting deserving Oregon State and Oregon in, these stupid P2 quotas result in:

A clearly three-bid SEC sneaks in a not-as-deserving 9-4 LSU team over 9-3 Oregon State.
By far the more egregious offense (and clearly proving why the Big Ten is the only conference pushing this plan now) is knocking out 9-3 Oregon in favor of … drumroll, please … well, I don’t know. NO OTHER BIG TEN TEAM APPEARED IN THE FINAL CFP OR AP TOP 25!
So I went with the last team to even appear in the CFP, which was lowly 9-5 Illinois. BLECH.
Seriously, what are we doing here, people? Squeezing in an unranked team because, quota?

The Big 12 continues to get two teams in either way (three, if you count Utah), as does the ACC. The B1G had to acquire three of the four at-large Pac-12 teams just to make its case.

Of course, this all presumes the biggest conferences would still play traditional championship games that produce rankings such as these; the plan, as we know, is to not.

Alternate Model: 12 Teams, Straight Seeding

If the model scheduled to be used this fall (2025) were applied back to previous years, it would net the following 12-team field for the season under discussion (auto-bids in bold):

Georgia
Michigan
TCU
Ohio State
Alabama
Tennessee
Clemson
Utah
Kansas State
USC
Penn State
Tulane

So basically it’s just your New Year’s Six participants, only instead the first-round matchups would be Tulane @ Alabama (winner meets Ohio State in a bowl game), Penn State @ Tennessee (winner gets TCU), USC @ Clemson (winner faces Michigan) and K-State @ Utah.

Alternate Model: 12 Teams, Original Seeding

Alternatively, you could field a 12-team field using the old seeding model only used in 2024:

Georgia
Michigan
Clemson
Utah
TCU
Ohio State
Alabama
Tennessee
Kansas State
USC
Penn State
Tulane

As you can see, this produces first-round matchups of Tulane @ TCU (winner moves on to face Utah in a bowl game), Penn State @ Ohio State (winner gets Clemson), USC @ Alabama (winner faces Michigan) and K-State @ Tennessee (winner then loses to Georgia).

In hindsight, we really can see how screwy this approach is. And considering it still doesn’t protect the Big 12 champion with a bye/home game, I’m starting to be glad that it’s dead.

Alternate Model: Eight Teams

For the sake of this exercise, I am going to assume the four major conferences would receive conference champion auto-bids and the other four teams would be selected at large. I think with only eight spots, the G5 would have a hard sell on getting an auto-bid.

(This is one of the reasons we jumped straight from four to 12, in fact — to avoid antitrust.)

I’m also going to presume under this model that champions would get to host, but since the first-round games likely would be played in bowl environments, that simply decides who gets to wear which jersey and possibly who gets which bowl (higher seeds closer to home):

Georgia
Michigan
Clemson
Kansas State
TCU
Ohio State
Alabama
Tennessee

Well, sucks for Tulane and the Pac-12! I do like that this model rewards K-State with a “home” game for beating TCU, unlike every other model that still places the Horned Frogs ahead of our Wildcats, but that’s also probably objectively fair given they beat Michigan and Alabama pantsed us. Also, a serious weakness of this model would be that immediate Big 12 rematch.

Alternate Field: The CFP Four

Georgia
Michigan
TCU
Ohio State

Well, we know how this turned out. While this CFP Playoff was entertaining until the end, it still featured just three conferences. And if TCU hadn’t run the table until its overtime loss, easy to see Alabama lurking there at No. 5 and sneaking in like Saban whined for anyway.

Alternate Field: The Good Ol’ BCS

The BCS would have produced a Georgia vs. Michigan matchup that, while perhaps more competitive than the final game we did receive, completely discounts TCU actually beating Michigan on a neutral field and preventing the Wolverines from even making it that far.

If you really want to go down this rabbit hole, the BCS Know How project has continued to project on X/Twitter what the original BCS standings would have looked like since 2013.

2022: What Really Happened

As we all know, two-time champ Georgia started the second-to-last four-team playoff as a 1 seed and successfully defended its 2021 title in the most lopsided fashion imaginable.

They did it by outlasting No. 4 seed Ohio State in a thrilling Peach Bowl before routing No. 3 seed TCU, which had previously upset No. 2 seed Michigan in a wild Fiesta Bowl shootout.

Alabama, a “victim” of the playoff committee in its mind only, took out its frustrations on poor Big 12 champion Kansas State, 45-20, in the Wildcats’ first-ever trip to the Sugar Bowl.

The Orange Bowl featured an all-orange matchup between Tennessee and Clemson, with the Volunteers winning a 31-14 game that really wasn’t even as close as that final score.

In the Rose Bowl, Penn State delivered unto Utah its typical faceplant by a score of 35-21.

Group of 5 upstart Tulane won the most exciting and unforgettable non-playoff New Year’s Six game of 2022, the Cotton Bowl, over USC by a score of 46-45.

Among our other hypothetical playoff participants, these were the real-world finishes:

Washington won an exciting Alamo Bowl against Texas in a harbinger of things to come…
Florida State edged a 6-6 Oklahoma team, 35-32, in the final Cheez-It Bowl before its descent into living pastry goodness.
Oregon State absolutely manhandled a 6-6 Florida team (noticing a theme here with the traditional SEC powers…?) 30-3 in the Las Vegas Bowl.
Oregon barely edged a good North Carolina team 28-27 in the first Holiday Bowl since 2019.

Wikipedia’s 2022 season summary

Tomorrow’s Games

To make these posts more fun and interactive, please vote for who you think would win each matchup! I can’t promise to take the votes into account because of the simulation process I use, but it will be interesting to see and discuss the results, plus they may serve as a sort of a tiebreaker if I end up needing one.

BracketCat’s Protest Playoff Archives