College Football Playoff Picture- Week 10 2025
The playoff committee’s rankings on Tuesday were telling. My three biggest takeaways were, in order of importance:
(1) They love Utah. I did not expect to see the Utes all the way up at 13th. If they win out, they have a good shot at an at-large bid at 10-2.
(2) They hate the ACC. Miami was a few spots lower than I expected, as was Georgia Tech. It will be hard for two ACC teams to get in- unless Georgia Tech beats Georgia.
(3) I was a bit surprised to see no G5 teams ranked.
Texas A&M (at Missouri): 100% with win, 93% with loss
Ole Miss (vs. The Citadel): 100% with win, 25% with loss
Alabama (vs. LSU): 94% with win, 62% with loss
Georgia (at Mississippi State): 94% with win, 60% with loss
Oklahoma (Bye)
Texas (Bye)
Vanderbilt (vs. Auburn): 33% with win, 2% with loss
Missouri (vs. Texas A&M): 12% with win, 0% with loss
Texas A&M, Ole Miss, Alabama and Georgia look good- although Alabama and Georgia would be in real trouble with losses this week. Both teams face games they could lose.
One of Oklahoma, Texas and Vanderbilt will probably play their way into the field. They still have to play Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee, respectively.
Indiana (at Penn State): 100% with win, 99% with loss
Ohio State (at Purdue): 100% with win, 97% with loss
Oregon (at Iowa): 87% with win, 47% with loss
Washington (at Wisconsin): 19% with win, 0% with loss
Michigan (Bye)
USC (vs. Northwestern): 15% win win, 0% with loss
Iowa (vs. Oregon): 15% with win, 0% with loss.
Oregon losing to Iowa would cause a lot of chaos. However, the potential playoff team that no one is talking about is Washington. The Huskies should be double digit favorites in their next 3 games before a season-ending home game against Oregon.
Notre Dame (vs. Navy): 67% with win, 3% with loss
Georgia Tech (Bye)
Louisville (vs. California): 27% with win, 3% with loss
Duke (at Connecticut): 24% with win, 7% with loss
Miami (vs. Syracuse): 19% with win, 0% with loss
Virginia (vs. Wake Forest): 22% with win, 3% with loss
SMU (at Boston College): 11% with win, 0% with loss
Pittsburgh (Bye)
This is a quiet week in the ACC before we have some contenders play each other in the weeks to come- Virginia still has to play Duke, Pitt still has to play Georgia Tech, and SMU still has to play Louisville.
Duke is in an interesting situation- they have 2 out of conference losses and could reasonably pick up a third with a road trip against a tough UConn team. Duke is not a lock to make the playoff if they win the ACC, especially if they lose to UConn. Remember that the top 5 conference champions get autobids, so if 2 G5 champions are ahead of ACC champion Duke, the Blue Devils would get left out.
Texas Tech (vs. BYU): 80% with win, 17% with loss
BYU (at Texas Tech): 69% with win, 30% with loss
Utah (Bye)
Cincinnati (Bye)
TCU (vs. Iowa State): 5% with win, 0% with loss
The best chance for a 2-bid Big 12 is for Texas Tech to beat BYU, and then have BYU win out. That won’t be an easy task for BYU- they still have to play Cincinnati and TCU.
Texas Tech more or less clinches a spot in the Big 12 title game with a win this weekend.
These numbers are all from prior to the weeknight games- so South Florida’s odds are a bit better after their win over UTSA.
I’m still more bearish than the market on James Madison’s odds of making the playoff. I think they’d need some serious chaos in the American (say, South Florida picking up a third loss but still winning the league) to get in over the American champion.