College Football Playoffs FAQ

The Expanded College Football Playoffs (CFP) is here!

There are now 12 teams vying, bracket-style, for the National Championship. But don't worry, this is not as big a change as you would think from last year's 4 team playoffs. The only real difference is that instead of just one game (the National Championship) being undetermined at the start, there are now seven undetermined games. Of course, the four 1st round game matchups will be predetermined during the CFP selection show and will be treated like any other bowl game.

How does the 12-team playoff work?

The CFP is basically a four round bracket, like a "Sweet 16", but with the top four teams getting a BYE in the first round. So what will your picksheet look like given the fact that there are seven games, starting with the quarter final round (Dec 31st and Jan 1st), where we will not know the actual matchups (and spreads, if applicable) until the prior round's game are complete? Well, it depends on your settings:

For "Against The Spread" pools:
For the playoff games starting with the quarter finals, instead of the two team buttons (road and home), there will be a single drop down list that includes all the possible teams that could theoretically make it to that game by winning the previous round (or having a bye). In this way, it will be possible to pick an underdog who you think will cover the spread but will not advance to the next round. Of course, for the semi-finals and National Championship, you won't really know who the underdog is (but more on that later). As the earlier round games complete and the following round matchups are finalized, those following round games will resolve into the familiar two team buttons with the actual teams that advance.

For "Straight Up" pools:
The website will treat Straight Up pools more like a bracket. There will not be any drop down lists with multiple teams. Any game where the matchup is not determined yet will have "TBD" placeholders instead of the team names. When you pick an earlier round game, the team you pick will be "advanced" to the appropriate game in the next round. So, for example, if you are wanting to pick the challenger to the #1 ranked team in the second round but that first round game has not been played yet, you will first have to pick the winner of that first round game that will determine the opponent. At that point you will be able to pick that same team to win again and advance to the 3rd round (if, in fact, you are picking them to advance over the #1 ranked team!).

What options are available for setting the Pick Deadline?

We always get questions about the pick deadline so please read this if you're not certain how it works. The key thing to know is that picks lock at the earlier of your official pick deadline and the game time. Once a game locks, the picks for that game show up for everyone to see. Under this system, you can use any pick deadline you like.

For the expanded 12 team playoffs and 7 undetermined games we offer the "TBD Playoff Game Time Deadline" option. This makes an exception to the above deadline rule. With this option selected, those seven "TBD" playoff games will stay unlocked and hidden until each of those games start, regardless of your official deadline. This will allow you to have an earlier official deadline for all the games that have predetermined matchups at the start of the Bowls, but will allow people to review and adjust their picks on those seven "TBD" playoff games after their matchups have been set following the conclusion of the previous rounds. This is very similar to our "Unlock Chamionship Game" option that we had last year when it was a 4 team playoff and the championship game was the only game that was not predetermined.

Here are a few pick deadline options that people commonly use:

1. Set it for an early time, like game time for one of the earliest bowl games, and don't change it. This makes it harder to get the later playoff games right (because you don't know the actual matchups or spreads) and it limits the amount of time people can research their other picks, or
2. Set it for an earlier game like the Hawaii Bowl on Dec 24th, but choose the additional deadline option for a "TBD Playoff Game Time Deadline". In this scenario, only the games that have started will be locked and visible up until the Hawaii Bowl. When the Hawaii Bowl kicks off, all of the rest of the bowl games will be locked and become visible except for the remaining seven playoff games which will follow the game time deadline rule for the rest of the schedule. This includes being able to change your total points prediction tiebreaker for the National Championship if you are using that as a tiebreaker.
3. Set it for the Championship game. This will allow people to change their picks for any game that hasn't started and all the picks for every game will remain hidden until kick off.

What deadline option do we recommend?

It's really a matter of preference and the pool manager might have to rely on their gut as to which option is best for their pool. We at OFP like Option 2, but the other options might suit you better. For example, if you are using confidence points, Option 3 might be better (see below). If you have a very engaged hands-on pool member base, then Options 2 or 3 might suit you. The trade off there is that people will just have to remember to come back to the picksheet and review their picks (but at least they'll know who is actually playing). If you want to lock things in early, show everyone's picks and not have to worry about further deadlines and changes, you should consider something like option 1, the trade off there of course being that you might be locked in to a team for the championship that loses in the first round.

Confidence Ranks (confidence pools only)

If you're running a confidence pool, the "TBD" games pose an additional problem early on in that you not only have to pick from 12 possible teams for the championship, but that you have to assign a level of confidence to that pick. For that reason, we would recommend using a the "Game time only" deadline (option 3 above). That is so you are not locked into any game until it kicks off and can shift your "unlocked" ranks around for the remaining games after the later round matchups are finalized. Realize that there are four additional non-playoff bowl games still to play after the first quarter final playoff game on Dec 31st, so once the quarter finals are complete, you'll still have seven "unlocked" ranks (including the National Championship) to shift around based on who makes it to the semi-finals and beyond. This will require some strategy. You may want to consider leaving yourself a decent spread of confidence ranks across those final seven games (some high, some low) so that as your pool of "unlocked" ranks dwindle, you'll have as much flexibility as possible in assigning your confidence ranks on the dwindling number of remaining games. If you only have your lowest ranks available with three games to go, you might already be out of the running.

Key Picks (key pick pools only)

If you're running a Key Picks pool, read the above paragraph on Confidence Ranks as the same basic concept applies.

Still Have Questions?

Please contact us with any questions, comments or suggestions and we will do our best to help clear things up.