College Football Playoff predictions: Our first guess at how the 12-team field will shake out in 2025

With the college football season four weeks old, it’s a good time to start trying to predict what the College Football Playoff field will look like. Every week until the rest of the season, we’ll preview what we think the 12-team bracket will be.

Just like in 2024, the field will be comprised of five conference champions and seven at-large teams. Unlike 2024, the top four seeds do not have to be conference champions. We’re certain the Big Ten or SEC will get multiple first-round byes in 2025.

Here are our inaugural playoff predictions for the 2025 season. These could change a lot from week to week, especially if there are a lot of upsets.

First-round byes

1. Ohio State (3-0, projected Big Ten champion)

The Buckeyes get the benefit of the doubt here until they lose or the winner of next week’s Oregon and Penn State game looks incredibly impressive. The defending national champions are still the team to beat in college football and have a very intriguing road test in Week 5 when they travel to face a 3-0 Washington team that just blew out in-state rival Washington State.

2. Penn State (3-0, at-large)

Like Ohio State, the Nittany Lions were off in Week 4. Opponents have scored just 17 points against Penn State all season, but it’s also worth noting those opponents have been Nevada, FIU and Villanova. We’ll get a great idea of where Penn State sits in its Big Ten championship rematch against Oregon in Week 5.

3. LSU (4-0, projected SEC champion)

The Big Ten is crowded at the top. The SEC may be even more so. It’s tough to predict who will be the SEC champion at this point, so we’re going with the top team in the AP rankings by default at the moment. LSU’s win at Clemson in Week 1 is looking less and less impressive by the week thanks to Clemson’s struggles, and LSU finally scored more than 23 points in a game in a 56-10 blowout of Southeastern Louisiana in Week 4. We’ll get a much better barometer on LSU in Week 5 when the Tigers travel to face Ole Miss.

4. Miami (4-0, projected ACC champion)

We’ll admit that we’re a little perplexed by the Hurricanes’ jump to No. 2 in the AP Top 25. Was the win over a struggling Florida team really worth a two-spot move up the rankings even though Penn State was off and LSU played an FCS opponent?

Don’t get us wrong, Miami has looked like a far more complete team in 2025 than it was in 2024. The Hurricanes are the favorite in the ACC and their Oct. 4 trip to Tallahassee to play Florida State should be very fun.

First-round matchups

No. 12 Memphis (4-0, top G6 champ) at No. 5 Georgia (3-0, at-large)

Memphis is our inaugural pick for the Group of Six representative in the playoff. Or, should we say, the American Conference representative in the College Football Playoff. It already feels like a foregone conclusion that the American will provide the non-power conference playoff team in 2025. The conference is deep and has a bunch of good wins, including Memphis’ 32-31 comeback win over Arkansas.

Georgia was off in Week 4 ahead of its home game vs. Alabama next week. The Bulldogs could become the clear early favorite in the SEC with a win over Alabama and an LSU loss.

No. 11 Texas (3-1, at-large) at No. 6 Oregon (4-0, at-large)

Maybe the boost of confidence Arch Manning gained against Sam Houston on Saturday will be what sparks the Texas offense. Manning had his best game of the season in Week 4 and showed some swagger in the process. Manning will need to be much better than he was over the first three weeks of the season for Texas to be a playoff team and we’re banking on that, for now. We’ve got the Longhorns provisionally in the playoff ahead of teams like Ole Miss, Tennessee, Missouri, Texas A&M and Alabama.

The Ducks are averaging nearly 51 points per game with new QB Dante Moore completing almost 75% of his passes. A win over Penn State would give Oregon a clear avenue to a second straight undefeated regular season and another first-round bye in the playoff.

No. 10 Indiana (4-0, at-large) at No. 7 Oklahoma (4-0, at-large)

Barring chaos at the top, we think the Big Ten will get four playoff spots again in 2025. And why wouldn’t that fourth spot go to Indiana again? The Hoosiers were incredibly dominant in all phases of their 63-10 win over Illinois and will be favored in every remaining game except their trips to Oregon and Penn State.

The 17 points Auburn scored against Oklahoma on Saturday was the most the Sooner defense has given up all season. Can Oklahoma get some more production from its offense? QB John Mateer can’t continue to bail out the Sooners against power conference teams.

No. 9 Florida State (3-0, at-large) at No. 8 Texas Tech (4-0, projected Big 12 champion)

After beating Alabama in Week 1, Florida State has outscored East Texas A&M and Kent State by a combined margin of 139-13. We’re not sure how much we can glean from those two games but we’re confident we’ll learn a lot about FSU over the next two weeks. The Seminoles travel to a frisky Virginia team in Week 5 before hosting Miami.

Texas Tech became the favorite in the Big 12 with the Red Raiders’ performance at Utah on Saturday. QB Will Hammond was excellent in relief of the injured Behren Morton and, more importantly for Tech’s season-long prospects, the defense was excellent. Utah rushed 31 times for 101 yards.