College Football Playoff Bracket | For most of the history of college football, the national champion was selected through a voting process.
Such groups as the Associated Press and United Press International polled sportswriters to determine the team they considered the best in the nation.
Multiple polls sometimes led to multiple champions, but even when all polls yielded the same team, there was often a sense that the true champion had been left uncrowned.
In recent years, the sport has attempted to address this through such stratagems as the Bowl Championship Series, which took the top two teams from polling and let them play in a national championship game separate from the other bowl games.
The College Football Playoff expanded this field to four, but complaints about teams left out (how, for example, do you honor the Power 5 conferences when you only have four teams that can win the title?) have seen the field now grow to 12.
Let’s take a look at how the bracket will work as you consider your sports betting strategy for this year’s bowl season.
How the 12-Team College Football Playoff Bracket Will Work this 2024/25 Season
How will the CFP committee fill the bracket?
The five highest-ranked conference champions will qualify for the 12-team bracket automatically. The seven highest-ranked teams who didn’t win their conference will take the other seven spots.
The top four seeds will go to the four conference champions with the highest rankings, who will receive a bye. Seeds 5–12 seeds will meet in the first round, with the higher seed hosting the matchups on either December 20 or 21. Here’s how those matchups will look:
- No. 12 at No. 5
- No. 11 at No. 6
- No. 10 at No. 7
- No. 9 at No. 8
How will the bowl games interact with the bracket?
The four quarterfinal games will be part of the New Year’s Six bowl games. These bowls will rotate hosting the national quarterfinal. The semifinals will take place in bowls on a rotating basis as well, and the national championship game will be chosen separately through a bidding process.
College Football Playoff Bracket | What is the schedule for 2024-25?
The first round will take place on December 20 or 21, with sites to be determined by the CFP selection committee after the conference championship games have taken place.
Quarterfinals
- Fiesta Bowl, December 31
- Peach Bowl, January 1
- Rose Bowl, January 1
- Sugar Bowl, January 1
Semifinals
- Orange Bowl, January 9
- Cotton Bowl, January 10
National Championship Game
- Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, January 20
Who’s in the running for the conference championships?
The inclusion of five conference champions was decided when there were still five power conferences. The implosion of the Pac-12 means that there will be a Group of Five conference champion in the mix – most likely Boise State, who plays in the Mountain West Conference, unless they get upset in the MWC title game by UNLV.
The Power 4 conference championship games will feature the following matchups
- ACC: SMU vs Clemson
- Big Ten: Oregon vs Penn State
- Big 12: Arizona State vs Iowa State
- SEC: Texas vs Georgia
How much will bad losses influence highly ranked teams?
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish lost at home to Northern Illinois in Week 2. That’s the same Northern Illinois team who went out and lost to the Buffalo Bulls the next week – a shocking loss that immediately put the Irish’s playoff hopes at risk. However, since then, the Fighting Irish have turned things around, outscoring their opponents in the next 10 games by a combined 441-134, including a 49-35 whipping of USC in the regular season finale.
The Streak
Tailbacks Jadarian Price and Jeremiyah Love have made Notre Dame a rushing power; in five straight games, the team has rushed for at least 200 yards, which is their longest such streak in 20 years. They also have scored at least 49 points in six games this season, also a school record. This is a dangerous team that we don’t see in the conference discussions because they are the last independent. However, don’t be surprised to see them holding a five- or six-seed.
Georgia Bulldogs
The Bulldogs lost to Alabama and Ole Miss this year. That’s the same Alabama team that has three losses, including setbacks against unranked Oklahoma and perennial SEC bottom-feeder Vanderbilt. If they had lost to Georgia Tech on Saturday, a loss to Texas in the SEC Championship would likely have left them out of the field of 12.
That eight-overtime win almost certainly keeps them in with 10 wins, but their defense is a real problem. They are seventh in the SEC in scoring defense (20.5 points permitted per game) and ninth in rushing defense (135.8 yards per game) and total defense (332.1). They let UMass run for 226 yards against them. Likewise, they let Georgia Tech run for 260 more. The SEC Championship could get ugly, because Texas has one of the more high-octane offenses in the nation.
Once we get through the conference championship weekend, we’ll know the entire field of bowl teams – including the first round of the CFP bracket. Stay tuned as you think about which teams you like to pull off upsets.
^"The commissioners have asked us to rank the Top 25 through the conference championships & that's what we intend to do."
— College Football Playoff (@CFBPlayoff) December 4, 2024
Hear now from Warde Manuel, chair of the #CFBPlayoff selection committee, as he chatted with @ESPN's @ReceDavis after the reveal of tonight's CFP Top 25. 🏈🏆 pic.twitter.com/rev8xFkpkS
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