It's been a while since Michigan State football last made the College Football Playoff, but the new 12-team format a year ago gave a lot of those fringe contenders a chance to prove themselves on the biggest stage.
Only one year of the 12-team format has happened so far and it was a relative success with Ohio State winning the national title despite not winning the Big Ten. The new format showed that even conference champions who got the coveted first-round bye weren't enough to fend off red-hot teams like Ohio State.
But just a year into the new format, there's already another change coming.
Before, if you were one of the top four ranked conference champions, you got a first-round bye and a top-four seed. If you didn't win your conference, the highest you could be ranked is No. 5. However, the new format is more of a straightforward seeding process with the committee's rankings deciding who gets those top-four seeds, according to CBS Sports.
For example, if Michigan State wins the Big Ten and Ohio State is still ranked in the top four in the final rankings by the playoff committee and the Spartans are fifth, the Buckeyes would get the bye and MSU would not. This no longer guarantees first-round byes for teams in the Big Ten and SEC unless they're ranked in that final top four.
This doesn't really affect Michigan State because it has to find its juice as a program (it hasn't had any in three years) and win 10-12 games before even being considered. If this was 2021, it would have affected Michigan State greatly. Now? Jonathan Smith has to figure it out before it's even a discussion.