The Ohio State football team was able to win the national championship last season without the benefit of having a first-round bye. In fact, they throttled Oregon, who had a first-round bye, in the Rose Bowl. That win helped propel them into playing their best football of the season.
Every team that had a first-round bye lost in the CFP this season. Part of that is due to the quality of the team that were given the byes. Arizona State and Boise State were each given byes despite not being in the top four of the final rankings. Neither won a CFP game.
Now, the Big Ten and the SEC want to change the seeding process for next season and beyond. They no longer want automatic first-round byes for conference champions. They just want the top-four teams in the country to get the byes, regardless of conference.
The Big Ten and SEC have a massive fight on their hands while trying to change CFP seeding
While they believe this would make more sense, they have a huge fight on their hands. Any change having to deal with seeding will require a unanimous vote from all of the Power 4 conferences. That means getting the Big 12 and the ACC on board with this plan.
Both conferences are pushing back hard with this proposal. They think it is fairer to keep things the way that they are. They aren't wrong. The Big Ten and SEC are just trying to push the other conferences around into doing whatever they want. Everyone else knows it.
The issue is that they might not win this fight, especially if they are about to change the format to a 14 or 16-team format. The Buckeyes would benefit from this change, but it wouldn't be good for college football at large. That's what this seeding change is about.
It doesn't look like this change is going to happen for the 2025 season, but it still might. If it doesn't happen this year, it will almost certainly happen next year once these two conferences seize power of the CFP.