It is conference championship week, and from the Group of 5 to the Power 4, there are plenty of interesting college football title games to watch this weekend. Throughout the conference championship slate, Sports Illustrated will give an updated look at the playoff seeding and matchups.
CFP Berths Clinched as Conference Champion
- Tulane
- Texas Tech
- Georgia
- Indiana
Update at 12:30 a.m. ET Sunday:
College football always delivers, don’t ever doubt it.
Saturday will go down in the sport’s history as one of the most incredible finishes to a conference championship weekend. Ever.
Indiana—Indiana!—beat Ohio State for the first time in any of the players’ lifetime. Duke, yes the five-loss Blue Devils, won the ACC outright for the first time since 1962 with an incredible interception in overtime.
And as a result, we may get not one but two Group of 5 teams into the College Football Playoff. This sport lives and breathes chaos and did it ever deliver before the clock struck midnight.
Now the selection committee must sort out the field. It faces three key questions:
- Who gets the No. 2 seed between Ohio State and Georgia?
- Who winds up as the final at-large teams between Alabama, Miami and Notre Dame?
- Who winds up as the fifth-highest conference champion—Duke or No. 25 James Madison?
It should make for a thrilling, and nervous, Selection Sunday for a whole lot of fan bases.
Update at 8 p.m. ET Saturday:
The committee could have had it easy. It does not.
Saturday’s SEC championship game could have complicated seeding or made the playoff bubble a mess. Georgia’s 28–7 victory over Alabama ensured it will be the latter which is preoccupying the committee’s minds as they settle in for the final two title games of the season which will help finalize the bracket.
The Crimson Tide sweated out Selection Sunday last year and will probably have to do so in 2025 with three losses once again. Kalen DeBoer’s team simply weren’t competitive in Atlanta, getting shut out over three quarters and doing everything it could to seemingly hand the ball to the Bulldogs. The Tide rushed for negative yardage, had a punt blocked and went just 3 of 13 on third down.
Is that playoff worthy?
We’ll see, but it’s not a great lasting impression on top of going 1–2 down the stretch against FBS opponents the last few weeks.
If there is one silver lining for the committee, such dominance at least makes the top four extremely clear. The Bulldogs will move up to the No. 2 spot in the playoff and split the winner and loser in Indianapolis between No. 1 Ohio State and No. 2 Indiana—especially in the case of a Hoosiers loss.
Update at 3:30 p.m. ET Saturday:
There was one very easy path for the selection committee to not have to make any hard decisions and face little, to no, controversy. That was if BYU could pull off the upset at AT&T Stadium on Saturday and force its way into the bracket.
Alas, that was not what transpired. Texas Tech secured its first outright conference championship since 1955 with an impressive 34–7 win over No. 11 BYU to lock up its place in the bracket by winning the Big 12. There was a lot of talk this offseason about how much the program spent on its roster, but safe to say it was worth it as the Red Raiders dominated the league all season and go into the playoff with plenty of momentum and one of the best defensive lines around.
Now the committee will have plenty of time to get to work on the debate that is going to largely define Selection Sunday: Miami vs. Notre Dame for the final at-large berth.
Update at 11:30 p.m. ET Friday:
The very first College Football Playoff bid of 2025 was locked up on Friday night. We’ll have to wait 24 hours to see if there were actually two that were clinched, however.
The American Conference championship was billed as a heavyweight matchup between ranked teams, but No. 24 North Texas never seemed to muster up much of an effort after tailback Caleb Hawkins went down with an injury and No. 20 Tulane seemed to catch every break to pull away with a 34–21 victory. That not only earned the Green Wave and outgoing coach Jon Sumrall a playoff berth—for now the No. 12 seed—but also extended one of the more impressive Group of 5 seasons in recent memory given what the team lost through the transfer portal and who they beat this season (including Duke and Northwestern).
The question is, will that be all from the Group of 5 ranks or can No. 24 James Madison join after winning the Sun Belt to cap off a 12–1 campaign? The Dukes didn’t have the sharpest start but pulled away from Troy with their sixth second-half shutout of the season to notch their first FBS conference title. It’s an impressive run by Bob Chesney & Co., but they will have to wait until late on Saturday night to see if they have a shot at the playoff should Duke upset Virginia in the ACC championship game.
Something says the Dukes won’t be alone in rooting for Duke on Saturday as the country inches closer and closer to the bracket falling into place.
Update at 4 p.m. ET Friday:
We made it to the home stretch of the College Football Playoff chase and Friday of championship weekend figures to be as interesting as it has been in close to a decade with potentially multiple teams locking up berths to the most debated bracket in years.
Most of the attention will naturally fall on the American Conference title game between No. 24 North Texas and No. 20 Tulane in New Orleans. This is a bit of an awkward matchup given both of the head coaches involved are leaving for Power 5 jobs but also figures to be one of the more high-level league title games given the quality of the conference this season and what we’ve seen from each team in 2025. There’s little question the winner of the game is getting a bid to the playoff—though that is open-ended as to whether that would be in the Group of 5 slot or if either the Green Wave or Mean Green actually wind up as the fourth-highest league champion should five-loss Duke win the ACC. More on that Saturday night.
The Sun Belt championship game is also of great importance as No. 25 James Madison is not only gunning to potentially leapfrog the team directly in front of them in North Texas—a slim chance, but one nonetheless—but potentially make the field in addition to whoever wins the American. The Dukes host Troy in a game where they are a prohibitive favorite, and it’s worth watching to see what kind of style points they put up should they take care of business and not allow the conditions in Harrisonburg, Va., to impact the outcome.
Finally, it’s also worth noting that Dan Mullen has UNLV sitting at 10–2 and travelling up to the blue turf to take on a Boise State that is far from what we saw out of the Broncos last year on their way to the CFP. The Rebels have not shut the door on making the CFP and there should be some added feelings in this one given the pending departure of Boise State to the Pac-12 and how often they’ve wound up on the right side of the scoreboard in this budding rivalry as of late. There should be plenty of explosive plays and a lot of fun out West.
The selection committee is going to be gathered for the first time to watch the games as a group. Their discussions should lay the groundwork for a very intriguing final vote over the weekend.
With all that in mind, here’s how the bracket looks going into what should be an eventful final weekend as the countdown to Selection Sunday begins.
Live Championship Weekend College Football Playoff Bracket
- Indiana
- Georgia
- Ohio State
- Texas Tech
- Oregon
- Mississippi
- Texas A&M
- Oklahoma
- Notre Dame
- Alabama
- Tulane
- James Madison
First Round
- No. 12 James Madison at No. 5 Oregon
- No. 11 Tulane at No. 6 Mississippi
- No. 10 Alabama at No. 7 Texas A&M
- No. 9 Notre Dame at No. 8 Oklahoma
Quarterfinals
- Cotton Bowl: No. 4 Texas Tech vs. winner of No. 12 James Madison at No. 5 Oregon
- Orange Bowl: No. 3 Ohio State vs. winner of No. 11 Tulane at No. 6 Mississippi
- Sugar Bowl: No. 2 Georgia vs. winner of No. 10 Alabama at No. 7 Texas A&M
- Rose Bowl: No. 1 Indiana vs. winner of No. 9 Notre Dame at No. 8 Oklahoma
No. 12 James Madison at No. 5 Oregon
The Ducks seem locked into a first-round game at Autzen Stadium against a Group of 5 team while not copying the long layoff that proved to be a problem last year. The question is, which Group of 5 team winds up traveling to the Pacific Northwest? As it stands, that would be the Dukes after Duke pulled off the upset to win the ACC in overtime, leaving that conference out of the playoff.
No. 11 Tulane at No. 6 Mississippi
The committee hasn’t treated Ole Miss any differently now that Lane Kiffin is at LSU and with Georgia’s win in Atlanta, that should lock the Rebels into the No. 6 seed and set off quite a party in the Grove for the first round. Coming into town? None other than a head coach rumored to be on the team’s short list if Kiffin left in Jon Sumrall (albeit with the Green Wave for a second time this season).
No. 10 Alabama at No. 7 Texas A&M
Was the committee moving the Crimson Tide up a spot on Tuesday simply an out so it can slide them back just one spot by Sunday? The voting simply doesn’t work that way inside the room, but it will nevertheless be some nervous times in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Sunday. As for Texas A&M, how costly was that loss to rival Texas? On top of bad feelings in the fan base, it gives them a home game against a team looking to prove everybody wrong as the final at-large into the playoff.
No. 9 Notre Dame at No. 8 Oklahoma
The most intriguing game of the first round may well be this one, pitting a Sooners team which has struggled offensively but has the best defense in the field against a Fighting Irish team which has been rolling ever since that 0–2 start. Throw in the helmet game between two of the winningest programs of all-time and the Palace on the Prairie should be electric.
Cotton Bowl: No. 4 Texas Tech
Joey McGuire’s team has accomplished a lot of firsts this season. The sweetest one however? The one that makes much of that money invested into one of the best rosters in football worth it? It came on Saturday afternoon in Arlington, Texas, where the program captured its first Big 12 title and a return trip to the Cotton Bowl for the CFP. The Red Raiders are a lock to receive a first-round bye and the only question is what top four seed they wind up with. Should Georgia lose, that could be No. 3 while a blowout of Indiana in the Big Ten title game may even put in play that No. 2 seed. Either way, there will be a lot of celebrating from Lubbock and beyond before they officially know on Sunday.
Orange Bowl: No. 3 Ohio State
Don’t say it doesn’t sting for the Buckeyes, because they sure looked heartbroken to leave Indianapolis without a conference title. If there is a silver lining from that loss to Indiana though, it may be that they lost their last game before the CFP last season and won it all. They’re capable of repeating that in 2025.
Sugar Bowl: No. 2 Georgia
Kirby Smart moves to 2–7 against Alabama after topping the Tide in Atlanta and it was just as sweet if they also wound up knocking the team out of the playoff altogether. This is not a vintage Bulldogs team but it might be one of the most dangerous to either of the Big Ten title game finalists between their history of winning and the way they play up front.
Rose Bowl: No. 1 Indiana
Indiana entered the 2025 season as the losingest FBS program in the sport’s history and will ring in the new year in the Rose Bowl as the No. 1 overall seed. Curt Cignetti is a miracle worker and winning the Big Ten is the latest data point for this incredible group of Hoosiers.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as College Football Playoff Bracket Live Projections: Duke vs. James Madison, At-Large Bid Debate.