The 2025 college football season kicks off in a couple weeks. In case you missed it, we published our pre-season Top 20 rankings HERE that will start as the basis for today’s look at the run into the second incarnation of the 12-team playoff. As a reminder, the playoff format remains largely the same from 2024 with one small rule change.

  • The 5+7 format remains in place with the top 5 conference champions receiving auto-bids and the other 7 teams receiving at-large bids.
  • You do NOT need to win a conference championship game to obtain a top 4 seed. This is the change for 2025.
  • The top 4 seeds are granted a bye to the quarterfinals.
  • Teams ranked 5 through 12 will play the first round matchups starting on Friday, December 19th with the higher seeds hosting the games on their campus.
  • There is no re-seeding after each round, teams are locked into their brackets.
  • They continue to rotate the 6 “major” bowl venues among the quarterfinal and semifinal matchups. This year, the Fiesta and Peach Bowl get to host the semifinals.
  • For the second time in the CFP era, Hard Rock Stadium will be hosting the National Championship. The last game in 2021 saw Alabama dominate Ohio State 52-24 to cap off an undefeated season. Notre Dame has the chance to open and end the season in Hard Rock Stadium should they make another run to the title game.

I try not to get too cute with these playoff predictions. I try not to take it too seriously and throw this out there mostly as a discussion for all the dumb stuff that could happen in 2025.

We only had 1 regular season rematch during the 2024 playoff and none of them came in the 1st round. I feel like it’s going to be a win for entertainment purposes if we get the fewest amount of rematches, at least in the first round. My predictions for 2025 are terrible in that regard. Boise would be going to South Bend for the second time this year, as would Oregon to Happy Valley. Texas and Georgia would be a rematch from a game barely a month earlier. Ditto for LSU and Alabama playing each other on November 6th. I don’t like it, but at least Texas and Alabama don’t face each other in the regular season, but the SEC Championship lingers as a possible matchup for those teams.

Facing a G5 program for the second time in about 11 weeks then losing to Ohio State in the quarterfinals would pretty uncool for the Irish. If this team can’t win a title at least beating the Buckeyes would feel pretty damn good. In the Rose Bowl, no less!

In a vacuum, the quarterfinal matchups to look nice from a TV and streaming viewership perspective. Last year we had Boise State, Penn State, and Arizona State in these games. Deep down, I think we knew none of these teams were championship worthy.

Using the FEI pre-season rankings, these are the top G5 teams:

Boise State
Army
Tulane
UCF
Navy
Memphis
James Madison

I’m telling you, watch out for Navy. They could easily be undefeated when they play Notre Dame (VMI, UAB, at Tulsa, Rice, Air Force, at Temple, FAU, at North Texas) with an 8-0 start not super unrealistic. If both Navy and Boise only lose to Notre Dame that’ll favor the recency bias for the latter, although an AAC Championship Game win might mean a lot more for Navy’s playoff hopes than Boise playing another Mountain West foe. This also would leave the door open (something we had to talk about last year) to Navy “clinching” a playoff win by the final committee rankings only to lose a week later in the game against Army.

I don’t even want to say it. Following championships by Michigan and Ohio State I really, really hope we don’t have to witness LSU doing the thing in 2025. Not after all this momentum for Marcus Freeman and Brian Kelly being humbled a bit in the Bayou. I don’t think they can do it, though. They have to rebuild their offensive line and put together too many pieces on defense. They should lose at Clemson to start the season (LSU has lost their last 5 openers, amazingly) and a visit to Tuscaloosa looms large, as well. With a pretty manageable SEC schedule (no Texas or Georgia softens things up considerably) they could be a 10-2 team with good momentum into the playoffs if Garrett Nussmeier truly is a top 5 quarterback.

Georgia has a lot to prove offensively and they are replacing so many good players on defense. A top 5 ranking feels a bit high to me, hence me moving them down on our 18S pre-season poll. I think they’ll be a very good SEC team that won’t struggle a ton to make the playoffs but still have flaws that will get exposed.

Alabama has the struggle of turning a former 5-star quarterback into a good player.

Am I crazy about an Alabama championship pick? It might feel a bit natural to see Dynasty Over takes after Kalen DeBoer’s first season with 4 losses but my goodness they return so many good players. If Ty Simpson is relatively okay to good at quarterback they have more overall talent to beat Texas.

Our playoff predictions based on conference bids:

SEC – 4
Big Ten – 3
ACC – 2
Big 12 – 1
Mountain West – 1
Independent – 1

If you’re a conference like the Big 12 do you favor the 5+12 proposed model or do you take the ego hit and support a 4+4+2+2 model to guarantee 2 teams in the show every year? If our predictions hold true, this will be the second year only 1 team from the Big 12 makes the playoffs. They had a pretty fun league last year with an exciting finish (4-way tie for the regular season crown!) and still only ASU made it to the playoffs with the auto-bid. They probably won’t sign the second-class status of a 4+4+2+2 format and I don’t think that will ultimately win out but I’m certain that way will ultimately get the Big 12 far more playoff teams over the years.

Not a real scary football conference, I’m afraid.

I think quality depth is going to be a real talking point for the Big Ten, especially if God willing Michigan and USC aren’t all that great. How many across the country believe Illinois, Indiana, or Nebraska are capable of winning a playoff game? I don’t see that in a way it’s conceivable for Tennessee, Ole Miss, or South Carolina to make more noise–the teams I expect to be just on the outside looking in from the top 20 at the end of November.

Our tough luck team left out of the playoffs is SMU at #11 in the straight rankings but jumped by Big XII champion auto-bid Arizona State and the G5 auto-bid to Boise State. It’s entirely in play that the Mustangs finish 11-2 with both losses to Clemson and don’t make the playoffs.