College Football Playoff bracket, schedule, scores, rankings

Share
Here’s the 2025-26 College Football Playoff bracket. No. 1 Indiana beat No. 10 Miami in the National Championship game on Monday, Jan. 19.
BRACKET GAME: Check your picks in the College Football Bracket Challenge Game
2025-26 College Football Playoff bracket
This bracket uses the CFP selection committee’s final top 25 rankings of the season from Sunday, Dec. 7.
Click or tap here for an interactive bracket.
The top 25 ranking does not always match the seed in the playoff, as the five highest-ranked conference champions get in automatically, even if they are ranked behind teams in the top 25 or not ranked in the top 25 at all.
2025-26 College Football Playoff schedule, scores
Click or tap here for a live scoreboard
- First round (Dec. 19-20)
- Friday, Dec. 19
- Saturday, Dec. 20:
- Quarterfinals (Dec. 31-Jan. 1)
- Wednesday, Dec. 31
- Thursday, Jan. 1
- Semifinals (Jan. 8-9)
- Thursday, Jan. 8
- Friday, Jan. 9
- College Football Playoff National Championship Game
College Football Playoff rankings, seeds
The four highest-ranked teams — regardless of how they finish in their conference — receive first round byes into the quarterfinals. These teams are listed in bold. The five highest-ranked conference champions receive automatic bids. All teams in the CFP bracket are in italics.
Here are the latest CFP top 25 rankings.
- Indiana: 13-0
- Ohio State: 12-1
- Georgia: 12-1
- Texas Tech: 12-1
- Oregon: 11-1
- Ole Miss: 11-1
- Texas A&M: 11-1
- Oklahoma: 10-2
- Alabama: 10-3
- Miami (Fla.): 10-2
- Notre Dame: 10-2
- BYU: 11-2
- Texas: 9-3
- Vanderbilt: 10-2
- Utah: 10-2
- USC: 9-3
- Arizona: 9-3
- Michigan: 9-3
- Virginia: 10-3
- Tulane: 11-2
- Houston: 9-3
- Georgia Tech: 9-3
- Iowa: 8-4
- James Madison: 12-1
- North Texas: 11-2
There is no re-seeding of the bracket after rounds.
The four quarterfinal games are not played on campus sites like in the first round. The quarterfinals, scheduled on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 — will be played at the Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl. The four highest-ranked teams will be assigned one of these bowls in consideration of historic bowl relationships as well as seeding.
The four quarterfinal winners will then meet in the semifinals at the Fiesta Bowl or the Peach Bowl on Jan. 8 and Jan. 9. If the seeds hold, that means No. 1 would play No. 4 and No. 2 would play No. 3. The two semifinal winners will then play on Monday, Jan. 19 in Miami for the CFP national championship.
College football schedule: When does the 2026 college football season start?
Here’s everything you need to know for the start of the 2026 college football season. The first FBS games are scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 29, while FCS starts a couple of days earlier on Thursday, Aug. 27.
READ MORE
FCS transfers who could impact next year’s College Football Playoff race
Here are 10 former FCS players that transferred up to the FBS and could have an instant-impact.
READ MORE
2025-26 college football bowl game schedule, scores, TV channels, times
Here is the 2025-26 college football bowl game schedule, with scores, times and TV channels for all games.
READ MORE




