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Michael McKernan

College Football 25 World Cup - Setup

Updated: Jul 14

Every four years, the whole world comes together to watch the World Cup. But, the World Cup has multiple stages in order to allow every country the chance to qualify. Each region does things a little differently, but most involve teams being sorted into "pots" based on FIFA World Rankings and then playing teams from different pots in their region. Winners of the Groups will then advance to the next stage or directly qualify for the World Cup.


My plan is to do something similiar with the World of College Football on College Football 25. First I will divide teams into 5 "World Regions." From there teams will be divided into pots based on the Preseason FPI on ESPN.com and will then compete to qualify for the World Cup.


As is the case in the soccer World Cup, certain regions will get more teams based on the talent in the region. I have calculated based on the 5 different regions the amount of top 50 teams, top 25 teams, top 10 teams, etc. and assigned quality points to each region. Then totaled up those quality points to gain a percentage of the whole and calculated what percentage of the 32 each region should earn.


5 Regions Based on Geography (Alphabetical, FPI according to Preseason ESPN.com)


Based on their Preseason FPI, teams were put into pots to get ready for a draw.

The draw was recorded using a "Wheel of Names" and the results are here:


Each region will have its own qualifying rules.


West (4 spots):

The winner of each of the 4 groups will automatically qualify for the World Cup.

The 4 second place finishers will enter a Round Robin. The winning team of the Round Robin will compete in a Playoff with a school from the Northeast for the final WC spot.


Southwest (7 spots):

The winner of each of the 5 groups will automatically qualify for the World Cup.

The five 2nd place finishers will enter a Round Robin. The top 2 of the round robin will advance to the World Cup. The third place finisher in the round robin will compete in a Playoff with a school from the Midwest for the final WC spot.


Southeast (8 spots):

The winner of each of the 5 groups will automatically qualify for the World Cup.

The five 2nd place finishers will enter a Round Robin. The top 3 of the round robin will advance to the World Cup.


Northeast (3 spots):

The winner of each of the 5 groups will advance to a round robin. The top 3 of the round robin will advance to the World Cup. The 4th place finisher will compete in a Playoff with a school from the West for the final WC spot.


Midwest (8 spots):

The top 2 in each of the 4 groups will advance to the World Cup.

The 4 third place finishers will enter a Round Robin. The winning team of the Round Robin will compete in a Playoff with a school from the Southwest for the final WC spot.



Home and Road was based on "Wheel of Names" with each team have 3 home and 3 away when playing 6 games (or 2 and 2 when playing 4) and each team having at least 2 home and 2 away when playing 5 games. Road wins will be a part of the tiebreaker process after Point Differential.

The order in which games are played was similarly randomly selected using "Wheel of Names" ensuring teams stay relatively even in games played.


Click here to see the Results. (LINK COMING SOON)

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