College Football Playoff Picture- Week 12 2025

Last week continued the trend of chalk in the playoff race. Lots of teams who could have lost (Notre Dame, Virginia, Ole Miss etc.) won. However, it was the week before Thanksgiving last year when chaos was unleashed (Ole Miss lost to Florida, Alabama lost to Oklahoma), so there is still time for shakeups in the race.

If you read my column last week, you might recall I talked about the probability of “overfilling” the playoff (more quality resumes than spots) vs. “underfilling” the playoff (fewer quality resumes than spots). The “overfilling” risk definitely went up a good bit this past week, but let’s put some hard numbers on it.

I define a “quality resume” as a Big Ten/Notre Dame/SEC team with 2 or fewer regular season losses, and an ACC/Big 12 team with 1 or fewer regular season losses.

As a reminder, we reserve 5 spots for conference champions which leave us with 7 at-large bids. If we assume that Ohio State and Texas A&M win the Big Ten and SEC, respectively, that leaves us with the following potential teams as “quality resumes”.

Big Ten: Indiana, Oregon, USC, Michigan

SEC: Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Vanderbilt

Other: Notre Dame

Big 12: Texas Tech (if they lose conference title game)

ACC: Georgia Tech (if they beat UGA and lose conference title game)

(Note that I don’t include 10-2 Utah or 10-2 Miami as a “quality resume”).

Here’s the distribution of the number of potential quality resumes needing at-large bids (recall that we have 7 at-large bids to allocate):

>=10: 0.3%

9: 4.9%

8: 20.9%

7 (perfectly filled): 37.6%

6: 27.7%

5: 7.9%

4: 0.7%

<=3%: 0%

There’s about a 40% chance that we have a pretty low drama Selection Sunday, a 25% chance someone “deserving” gets left out, and about a 35% chance someone “undeserving” gets put in.

We thus have two main questions to answer:

(a) Within the “deserving” teams, who has the worst resume? These teams are at risk of missing out in an “overfill” situation. My guesses are 10-2 Vanderbilt and 10-2 Oregon, but I’m not sure.

(b) Within the “undeserving” teams, who has the best resume? These teams can get in in an “underfill” situation. My guess is 10-2 Utah.

With that math out of the way, let’s get to this week’s playoff odds.

Georgia and Texas A&M are in. Ole Miss is nearly certain to join them even if they lose to Mississippi State.

Alabama and Oklahoma’s paths are clear. Both will be in if they win out, but they have some tricky games. I think a 3 loss Oklahoma also has a faint shot if there’s a lot of chaos elsewhere.

I do worry a bit about a 10-2 Vanderbilt team getting in, but I think they probably well. Texas has a faint shot if they win out, but they’ll need a lot of help elsewhere.

Indiana and Ohio State are stone cold locks.

Oregon is in if they win out- if they take a loss, I think they’re a little better than a coin flip to make it in. They’d probably rather lose to Washington than USC- because it would be hard to rank them over fellow 2-loss USC. USC is in a good spot if they win out.

Michigan will make it if they win out, but they’ll be nearly a two touchdown underdog to Ohio State next weekend.

Notre Dame is in barring something truly shocking down the stretch.

The ACC has two at-large hopes:

(1) Georgia Tech beats UGA and loses the ACC title game- I still doubt they make it, but it’s definitely possible

(2) Miami wins out and gets in at 10-2. I think they’d have around a 15% chance to get in.

Barring those happening, the ACC is a 1 bid league. Georgia Tech controls their own destiny in the league, and Virginia very nearly does. SMU and Pitt need some help, and Miami needs a lot of help.

People seem pretty confident that Texas Tech is getting in if they lose the Big 12 title game. I am less sure, if we end up in a massive overfill scenario, they’re not going to leave out 10-2 USC or 10-2 Ole Miss for 11-2 Texas Tech.

I don’t think BYU has much of an at-large case if they lose the Big 12 title game. Utah has some at-large case at 10-2, and they also have a path to the conference title game- especailly if BYU slips up against Cincinnati.

The surprise of the week was Tulane getting ranked by the CFP committee while James Madison was not. That changed things a lot- I figured JMU would get in over Tulane if they both won their conferences.

James Madison is very likely to win the Sun Belt and should get in over any American team not named North Texas or Tulane. North Texas and Tulane just need to hold serve these last two weeks to make the conference title game.