Your guide to the new, expanded College Football Playoff: Explaining a complicated process

The expanded playoff is arguably the most consequential change in the history of college football — one the sport “has needed for a long time,” College Football Playoff executive director Rich Clark said last week.

But the move from four teams to 12 includes complicated changes to the selection and seeding processes.

Here is an explanation in eight steps:

1. The CFP has ballooned from two rounds of play to four.

It begins Dec. 20-21 with four opening-round games played on the campus of the higher seed (i.e....