The future of the College Football Playoff is a hot-button issue at the SEC spring meetings, and Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin contributed to the discussions by questioning the necessity of a selection committee.

Since the CFP’s inception in 2014, a 13-member committee has been responsible for crafting postseason brackets, somewhat similarly to how the NCAA structures other championship sports. Stricklin remarked on Tuesday, as relayed by Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger, that football differs from other sports due to possessing less data and fewer games, which results in less information to guide the selection process.

Stricklin served on the CFP selection committee from 2018 to 2021 and is among a multitude of athletic directors and prominent college football figures who have held similar roles. Committee members usually serve terms ranging from two to four years to enable annual rotations.

“A committee is not ideal to choose a postseason,” Stricklin expressed. “I question whether it is appropriate for college football.”

Additionally, the CFP selection committee consists of one active athletic director from each power conference, alongside former coaches, players, administrators, and media members. The committee regularly releases top 25 rankings during the latter half of the season, utilizing various factors to seed the playoff bracket.

Previous iterations of the selection committee have faced criticism due to controversial seeding and playoff inclusion decisions, most notably after Florida State was excluded from the bracket despite being the first undefeated power conference champion.

Historically, college football has crowned champions without using a selection committee, as media and coaches polls awarded national titles to their top-ranked teams for decades. The BCS system was introduced in 1998, employing a computer formula to rank teams and pair the top two for a championship showdown.

Controversies during the BCS era ultimately catalyzed the establishment of the CFP, transitioning the selection process away from computers and placing it under the stewardship of knowledgeable figures in college football.

The playoff selection process remains complex, as teams from different conferences participate in an unequal number of league games and contend with varying schedule strengths. The existing 12-team model now includes automatic bids for the five highest-ranked conference champions, yet the committee still determines the filling of seven at-large spots as well as seeding.

A straight-seeding model was approved last week for the 2025 playoff, with ongoing discussions among conference leaders about possibly expanding the playoff to 14 or 16 teams, beginning in the 2026 season coinciding with the next media rights agreement.