The first College Football Playoff rankings of the 2025 season will be revealed at 8 p.m. Tuesday, and I’ll be using my projections model to predict how the selection committee will rank the teams each week.
I’ve spent hours studying the relevant metrics to predict the rankings and have found a formula that works pretty well. In fact, last year, my final projected College Football Playoff bracket was not only perfect at getting all 12 teams correct, but also the exact seeds for each team.
No formula is perfect, of course. These are humans making selections, and there has been talk of strength of schedule mattering more this year. But as it stands right now, I feel pretty confident these rankings will do a pretty good job of predicting how the committee will think:
Projected CFP Top 25 after Week 10
Rank
Team
Record
SOR
SOS
1
8-0
6
64
2
9-0
3
45
3
8-0
1
14
4
7-1
4
7
5
7-1
5
9
6
8-1
2
19
7
7-1
21
72
8
8-0
7
57
9
8-1
11
49
10
6-2
16
16
11
7-2
13
23
12
7-1
9
53
13
8-1
12
70
14
7-2
10
8
15
8-1
8
74
16
7-2
14
17
17
7-2
18
58
18
6-2
17
18
19
6-2
20
31
20
6-2
23
30
21
7-2
15
36
22
6-2
22
42
23
6-2
30
67
24
6-3
32
13
25
7-2
19
54
Next five: Memphis, North Texas, James Madison, Pittsburgh, South Florida
Strength of record (SOR) and strength of schedule (SOS) rankings are based on The Athletic’s model
Biggest question: How will strength of schedule be factored in?
Last year, the drama surrounding the final playoff rankings was SMU (11-2) getting the final at-large bid over Alabama (9-3) after losing an extra game in the ACC championship against Clemson. SMU ultimately traveled to Penn State in the first round, where it lost 38-10 to the Nittany Lions.
For years, the Power 5 conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC) dominated college football, but with conference realignment obliterating the Pac-12, it’s now a Power 4 that feels more like a Power 2 with the Big Ten and SEC calling the shots.
Personally, I think the strength of schedule discussion is a little overblown. A lot of metrics that you’ll hear about — including strength of record — do a good job factoring in the quality of opponents that every team plays. According to my strength of record numbers, four of the top five teams are from the SEC. Two teams from the Big Ten fill out of the other spots in the top six.
Where things get tricky is when we start talking about raw wins and losses or beating teams with a winning record. In other words, an 8-4 team from the MAC should not be seen as the same as an 8-4 team from the SEC. That’s not how we should be choosing teams when there are plenty of better ways to measure team quality or resume.
At the end of the day, the committee has done a pretty good job of ranking teams during the CFP era with few true controversies in the final selections. Because SMU was ranked ahead of Alabama before the ACC title game game last year, I think it’s fair that it didn’t get punished while Alabama was at home not playing an extra game. Was Alabama the better team? Most likely. More deserving? Well, the committee didn’t think so.
Will it continue to operate that way? Or will the power continue to swing toward the Big Ten and SEC? My projected Top 25 has three ACC teams in the initial top 15 and two Big 12 teams in the top 10, which gives both conferences a legit shot at two at-large bids. We will start finding out Tuesday night whether the committee thinks so too.
With the expanded field, there will always be arguments over the final at-large bid, considering how close those teams’ resumes often are. And in last year’s case, the two were very similar and the committee went with the regular season having meaning rather than just picking the “best” team.
If the committee is using more metrics that attempt to adjust for schedule and give context to a team’s record, I’m not going to argue with that. As for what I think the committee will do, I believe it will side with the teams with the better schedules because that aligns with the Power 2 conferences. Will the changes be drastic? No. But if two teams are similar in resume, my guess is that they will spurn the ACC/Big 12 and side with the Big Ten/SEC.
What the 12-team bracket would look like
The bracket below is based on the projected selection committee rankings for Nov. 4. Find my projections for the final bracket here.
