College CoD League (CCL) is back for another year with some new changes. CCL will be resuming play during the spring semester as part of NECC.
CCL first began running under the NECC banner in Spring 2024 and have continued their partnership going into this academic year.
Registration is open now for teams that want to register early. Teams can sign up until January 5th.
The CCL Format Going Into 2025
Once again, competing teams will be split across four regions: Midwest, West, Northeast, and Southeast.
The big change for this year is that within regions, teams will be divided into several conferences. These conferences will create even smaller geographic regions which teams will reside in.
Within each conference, teams are randomly split between two divisions. Each division will see each team compete against every other team in round-robin play.
A divisional restructure will occur halfway through the season. Teams from the top half of each division will be placed into the same division, while the bottom half from each division will compete in a separate division.
New to this season is the addition of a conference championship. After the divisional restructure, the top two teams from the upper division will compete to be crowned conference champions.
With the new conferences system, playoffs will take place over two three-day intervals.
The Regional Playoffs on April 4th will see the top 16 teams from each conference compete in their regional final: a 32-team double elimination bracket.
The top 8 teams from each region will advance to the CCL Playoffs on April 11th. After three days of playoffs, the final four teams will advance to a LAN event on a date to be determined.
Creating Better Competition For Everyone
While largely similar to their previous format, College CoD’s looks to give more opportunities for teams of all skills levels.
CCL bringing back the mid-season restructuring should be a great way to keep everyone competitive throughout the entire season. Similar to a Swiss Format, teams feel more empowered to continue competing even after a rocky start.
It will be interesting to see if CCL’s format is too forgiving in regards to playoffs. With so many teams from each conference qualifying for playoffs, will teams take their foot off the gas if they place in the top half before the divisional restructuring?
The addition of a conference championship before playoffs will hopefully serve as a good incentive to compete hard, deep into the season.
The conference championship will also hopefully put more of an emphasis on inter-regional rivalries. Regional collegiate LANs have been increasing over the last few years, putting a spotlight on crosstown rivalries across multiple titles.
While College CoD won’t see LAN play until the final four, the narrowing of regions into conferences will hopefully lead to greater regional pride seen in traditional collegiate athletics.
Registration information
Entry into College CoD will cost schools $350 for their first team and then $250 for an optional second team.
Schools that are NECC members will receive a $50 discount for each team registered. Schools can register for College CoD regardless of affiliations they have with any other collegiate conference.
The best deal on offer, though, belongs to schools that have never competed in College CoD. For them, each team will only cost them $200 per team. Payments can be made through NECC’s invoice form.
Schools interested in registering can do so on the CCL LeagueOS page. Registration is open now and will close on January 5th.
If that’s too long a wait, College CoD is hosting a preseason tournament with a prize pot of $1500. Registration is also open now, and that event will be from December 13th through the 15th.
With a refined vision for the future, College CoD and NECC are looking to make this season’s competition the biggest and most competitive it’s ever been.
