Here's how expanded College Football Playoff works

The 2024 college football season will be fully under way Saturday with an impressive schedule that includes No.1 Georgia vs. No. 14 Clemson, No. 8 Penn State vs. West Virginia, No. 7 Notre Dame vs. No. 20 Texas A&M and No. 19 Miami vs. Florida.

Much of the chatter this season will be focused on the newly expanded, 12-team College Football Playoff.

Here are three frequently asked questions about the new format.

How will the expanded playoff format work?

Champions from the Power Four conferences — the Big 12, SEC, ACC and Big Ten — will get an automatic bid and first-round bye. The highest-ranked Group of Five champion — CBS Sports ranked them recently — will be seeded by a vote of the CFP committee, most likely 12th.

After that, the remaining seeds will be based on the final committee rankings, with seeds five, six, seven and eight hosting a first-round playoff game. So, the No. 5 seed would play the No. 12 seed, No. 6 would play No. 11, No. 7 would play No. 10 and No. 8 would play No. 9.

The winners will advance to the quarterfinals to face seeds one through four in a New Year's Six bowl. There is no re-seeding at any point in the playoff, so the No. 1 seed will always play the winner of the No. 8 vs No. 9 first round game rather than the lowest remaining seed.

ESPN recently posted what a 12-team bracket would have looked like at the end of the past two seasons.

Will the top-12 ranked teams be the same 12 teams in the playoff?

The short answer is no.

The new format is structured so teams ranked in the top 12 by the committee are not all guaranteed to make the playoff.

For example, if Oregon wins the Big Ten Championship Game but is ranked outside the top four, Oregon will still receive a top-four seed in the bracket. So, if Ohio State were ranked in the top four but did not win the Big Ten, the Buckeyes could only be seeded No. 5 at highest in the bracket.

The expanded playoff was meant to eliminate a Florida State fiasco like last season, when it went undefeated but still did not make the playoffs. However, there is bound to be at least one team that will feel snubbed despite the expanded format.

So, it's possible that the No. 12 team in the final committee rankings could be left out of the playoff for the lower-ranked Group of Five champion that would take the No. 12 seed in the bracket.

Fox Sports' Joel Klatt and CBS Sports' Jake Pate discussed Monday on "The Joel Klatt Show" how there could be up to 30 fan bases who feel their teams are playing meaningful football in late November compared to previous seasons.

Is the regular-season schedule affected?

For now, the regular season will stay the same, with teams playing 12 games and some playing in a  conference championship game. The new format will test the long-term health of some rosters, however, by adding at least one extra week of meaningful football on the schedule.

Teams in the playoff probably won't have NFL Draft-eligible players sitting out postseason games, but if they do, imagine those postseason headlines.