Is there already a controversy in the College Football Playoff? Potential bye, jittery nerves with 2 weeks to go — ‘The data don’t lie’

The College Football Playoff selection committee enters its final two weeks of deliberations with a long list of consistent decisions weighing on the 13 members.

(1) Who are the final major selections in the field?

(2) Which teams receive a first-round game at home?

(3) Which four conference champions receive a first-round bye?

The first two create lots of anxiety. But it is the third point of stress that perhaps offers the most exciting debate. The five highest-ranked conference champions get a bid to the 12-team field, and the top four champions are seeded as No. 1-4 and receives a bye to the quarterfinals.

Many assumed that the champions of the four power leagues would annually receive these first-round byes.

The CFP Selection Committee’s final rankings paint a different picture. In its rankings released last week, Boise State (10-1) was ahead of all Big 12 teams, paving the way for the Broncos to receive the No. The 4-seed and first-round bye in a group with five-over-power Four jumps.

Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said such a decision would be the wrong one.

“Based on where we sit today, I see no reason for the Big 12 champion not to get a first-round bye,” Yormark told Yahoo Sports. “The winner of our championship should receive a bye. I have a lot of confidence in the selection committee and I’m sure they’ll see it that way. Just look at the data. The data doesn’t lie. From a schedule standpoint, all four of our schools at the top of the rankings ranked ahead of Boise State.”

At the center of the debate is a comparison not only of the individual teams, but of the two leagues. The argument is fascinating in an era of college football where the power leagues continue to separate themselves from the other five: Mountain West, Sun Belt, Conference USA, American and Mid-American.

Yormark is loaded with Big 12 data points. His league has 42 wins over teams with a winning record. The Mountain West has 11 (five of them from Boise and UNLV). Nine Big 12 teams are bowl eligible. The Mountain West has five.

Boise’s strength of schedule is ranked No. 81, 12 spots behind the worst of the 12 top four teams (Iowa State at 69). The two leagues have actually met on the pitch eight times this season. The Big 12 is 6-2 with an average margin of victory of more than three touchdowns. UNLV has both Mountain West wins (at Houston and Kansas).

“Arizona State defeated Wyoming by 41 points. BYU beat them by 20. Boise battled Wyoming in a four-point win,” Yormark said. “There’s no reason why we won’t get a goodbye.”

In an interview Monday with Yahoo Sports, Boise State coach Spencer Danielson isn’t looking too far ahead — a message he’s hammering home to his team.

“We still have two more games to continue this conversation,” he said. “That’s where I’m at with it. We’ve been playing playoff football since the Oregon game. I believe in our schedule. We’ve played well. We played well against Oregon. Are we eligible for a bye? It’s up to the committee .”

Seven of Boise State’s 10 wins have come by at least two scores, including a 21-point victory over a Washington State team that beat Texas Tech by three touchdowns in Week 2 of the season.

But Boise State’s strongest arguments might be its one loss and its best player. The Broncos led the no. 1 Oregon for much of their game on Sept. 7, eventually losing on a last-second field goal. Boise State has the nation’s leading rusher, Heisman Trophy candidate Ashton Jeanty, who has run for nearly 600 more yards than the next best rusher.

“There have been several ranked teams that are no longer ranked because they got caught up in this,” Danielson said. “It’s hard for me to lobby on things with two games left. You control what you can control.”

Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez declined comment except to gesture to similar data points for the Broncos, particularly the three-point loss in Eugene.

The CFP selection committee meets again early this week before its rankings are revealed Tuesday night on ESPN. Over the weekend, the Big 12’s two highest-ranked teams, No. 14 BYU and no. 16 Colorado. Boise State, ranked No. 12 last week, survived the scare from Wyoming.

In the updated AP poll released Sunday, Arizona State was the highest-ranked Big 12 team at No. 14. Boise was no. 11.

“What’s going on right now is not fair to the Big 12,” Kansas State coach Chris Klieman told reporters Monday. “Other teams can lose in other leagues and it’s ‘That league is really good!’ We lose in this league and it’s ‘This league stinks!’ I don’t get it. As a conference, we’ve got to figure some things out. For a bunch of teams to be 9-2, and we can’t get any (advantages) in the College Football Playoff, we’ve got to cancel one of those (conference) games and then go to eight games.”

The decision of the selection committee in connection with the first round bye is not insignificant. The fourth-highest ranked conference champion, the No. The 4 seed in the bracket gets an extra week to rest. The team was scheduled to play one of the winners of the no. 5-12 seed matchups in a bowl site quarterfinal matchup.

The fifth-highest-ranked conference champion, at least according to how the rankings project, will likely be seeded as the No. 12. This means that you play a first-round game on no. 5 seed on the road. The no. 5 seed, for now, projects to be a Big Ten championship game loser, likely Oregon or Ohio State, the two top-ranked teams in the nation.

However, before a decision is made by the committee, the remaining schedules must be played out.

Boise State hosts Oregon State (5-6) and then faces Colorado State or UNLV in the Mountain West championship game played in Boise.

The Big 12, meanwhile, is much less certain. The 16-team conference, billed as having the most parity of any power league, certainly delivers.

Nine teams remain eligible for the conference championship gamewith four of them in the best position. BYU (9-2), Iowa State (9-2), Arizona State (9-2) and Colorado (8-3) are tied at 6-2 in the conference atop the standings. All four are favored to win their regular-season finale, an outcome that would put Arizona State and Iowa State in the title game.

“I said in July we have great depth and parity and I thought it would play out and it has,” Yormark said. “I said the month of November would be magical and it has. It’s made for TV.”

The debate over the CFP’s final first-round bye is an extension of a long-running battle between the power leagues and those from the lower resource tier of the Football Bowl Subdivision. The gap between the two continues to grow, both from decisions made by leaders and from the courts.

The decisions have accelerated the concept of schools directly compensating athletes — a much more difficult endeavor for Group of Five programs. Their budgets are usually fractions of the schools in power conferences that reap more lucrative TV contracts and generate more internal revenue through donations and ticket sales.

In fact, the Group of Five is having the hardest time winning games against power leagues this season, according to data from ESPN. Group of five programs — including independents UMass and UConn, as well as Oregon State and Washington State — are 8-87 against power teams. The winning percentage of .084 is believed to be the worst in modern history.

The decision to include a fifth conference champion in the field — to ensure a group of five — is a topic that has drawn heated debate and scrutiny over the years from leaders of the power leagues. Craig Thompson, the former Mountain West commissioner, was part of a four-man task force that originally created the current 12-team format. He was the only representative from the G5 ranks.

“What happens with Boise State possibly getting a bye is not surprising,” Thompson said in a recent interview with Yahoo Sports. “The Group of Five champions, if they have a big year, are rewarded in the system.”

The five auto-bids and first-round byes were not assigned to specific conferences to avoid scrutiny by congressional lawmakers, who previously used the old BCS concept to create a caste system.

Last spring, CFP leaders — the 10 conference commissioners and Notre Dame’s athletic director — re-evaluated the format when they agreed to a new six-year extension that begins with the playoffs in 2026. They didn’t settle on a format, instead accepting only protections guaranteeing (1) the five highest-ranked champions an automatic berth, (2) the field to be 12 or 14 teams in size, and (3) Notre Dame to receive a at-large bid if placed among top 12 or 14, depending on field size.

During discussions, the debate raged on whether to keep the group of five entry slot. Speaking to Yahoo Sports from her conference football media days in July, Nevarez said the power conference leaders “threatened” to remove the G5’s bid this spring. But “to their credit, it never came off the table.”