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After weeks of deliberation, pointless weekly rankings shows, and debates aplenty, the 2025 College Football Playoff field is set. 

Let’s start with drama. After being idle this week, Notre Dame, who for weeks looked like a lock to make the Field of 12, was shockingly (or not so shockingly, depending on who you ask) dropped out of the Playoff picture in favor of Miami (who defeated the Fighting Irish months ago) and, perhaps most controversially, Alabama, who got steamrolled by Georgia on Saturday afternoon and has three losses, including one to an abysmal Florida State team. 

This decision comes with a heap of controversy at best and tinfoil hat SEC conspiracies at worst. I would never float this idea… but did SEC commissioner Greg Sankey make some phone calls? Did the Disney television executives pull some strings? Is this all a big conspiracy to make Notre Dame join a conference? You be the judge. 

Controversy aside, we have some juicy matchups ahead. Some quick hits about the CFP field: 

College Football Playoff first round matchups are as follows:

Cometh the man, cometh the hour. Curt Cignetti is the new Big Ten Boogeyman. 

In a game billed as a heavyweight title fight, Indiana answered the bell at every turn. The undefeated Hoosiers stood tall against arguably the best defense in college football, put the clamps on an offense littered with NFL talent, and knocked off the defending national champs to win the conference championship and secure the top seed in the 2025 College Football Playoff. 

Conference championship games are supposed to be knockdown, drag-out fights, and this game was just that. After a bit of a cagey start where both teams survived early turnovers, things heated up in the second half. Down 10-6 in the third quarter, Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza—who, in my opinion, all but wrapped up the Heisman Trophy Saturday night—marched the Hoosiers down the field for a seven-play, 88-yard drive that culminated in an NFL-level slot fade connection with star wide receiver Elijah Sarratt that pushed Indiana ahead 13-10.

Soon after that Hoosier score, Ohio State put together a tough drive of its own but got stuffed on a fourth-and-one in the red zone after a lengthy review. In the fourth quarter, all eyes were on the Ohio State offense. 

Buckeyes quarterback Julian Sayin engineered a great drive of his own, with the defending champs living and dying by third-down conversions. The Buckeyes drove deep into Indiana territory, but finally got stopped on third down. With a chance to tie the game, Ohio State kicker Jayden Fielding inexplicably shanked a 27-yard field goal. 

Later, Ohio State’s defense bowed up to force a critical third down, but Mendoza answered the bell again when he connected on an incredible deep pass with Charlie Becker, who finished with six catches for 126 yards, on perhaps the gutsiest call of the game. 

In the end, Indiana held serve (and often won) at the lines of scrimmage, blanked the vaunted Ohio State offense in the second half, and most importantly, squashed any questions about them or their program moving forward. The Hoosiers are lethal. Mendoza is a future Heisman Trophy winner. And Curt Cignetti is, without a doubt, one of the sport’s great coaches.

With the win, Indiana captures its first Big Ten title since 1967 and is now the number one seed in the College Football Playoff. Ohio State, meanwhile, drops behind the Hoosiers in the CFP bracket but still has the bones of a team that can repeat as national champs.

Does Georgia head coach Kirby Smart have an Alabama problem? Let's put the debate to bed now.

Despite being just 1-7 against Alabama (albeit the one win came in the national title game) before Saturday’s kickoff, you wouldn’t have known it by the final result. Smart’s Bulldogs brought the bark and the bite, dominating Alabama in all three phases en route to a dominating 28-7 win in the SEC Championship Game. 

This time last year, Georgia starting quarterback Gunner Stockton was thrust into the SEC title game spotlight after Carson Beck’s injury. He looked very much like a backup quarterback then. But now? Stockton has ascended into one of the SEC’s best signal callers, and he put it all on display Saturday evening. Stockton was sharp, finishing 20-of-26 for 156 yards and three touchdowns in the air, while chipping in 39 yards on the ground.

Outside of Stockton, the Georgia defense and defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann deserve a ton of credit. The Bulldogs defense blanked the Crimson Tide offense for three quarters. They forced Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson to have one of his worst outings of the season. Perhaps most impressively, that group allowed -3 rushing yards on 16 carries (accounting for sack yardage). It was a stone-walling in every sense of the word.

Turnovers and key conversions were the story of this football game. In the first quarter, Georgia blocked a punt and immediately answered it with a score. Later, the Bulldogs intercepted Simpson and scored a few plays later. After forcing a short field directly after halftime, Georgia quickly scored again to stretch the lead to 21-0. The first half was a total whitewash, with Georgia being the first team since 2002 to hold a team scoreless through two quarters in the SEC title game.

Georgia this, Georgia that. What about Alabama? 

Let’s put it this way: this was the type of loss that enabled the college football community to embrace debate on whether the Crimson Tide belongs in the College Football Playoff. 

The Tide did, however, make it into the Field of 12. Did the Crimson Tide deserve a spot? I’m not so sure.

You wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts. 

Just when we thought the Atlantic Coast Chaos Conference had spun off its axis, it gave us perhaps the most ACC ass ending of all-time. 

Minutes after a win-and-you’re-in Virginia drove 96 yards in roughly 90 seconds to tie up the ACC Championship game with 22 seconds left, the game hit another level of crazy. 

Virginia forced overtime at 20-20. Then, 7-5 Duke needed four goal-to-go plays for quarterback Darian Mensah to find an open receiver in the end zone to go up seven. Virginia then got its turn in overtime, and things went horribly wrong.

You would’ve thought that after driving the field, head coach Tony Elliott might trust his offense. You would be mistaken. Instead of a standard run or pass play, the Hoos dialed up a diabolically ill-timed trick play on their first overtime possession on offense, resulting in a back-breaking, game-sealing interception thrown by quarterback Chandler Morris that wrapped up the 27-20 win and ACC Championship for Duke, all while throwing the College Football Playoff picture into complete disarray. The playcall was the textbook definition of “getting too cute.” 

Virginia’s crushing loss ended the Hoos’ hopes of making the CFP. Meanwhile, Duke’s win as a five-loss team meant that the champion of a Power Four conference would be left out of the field entirely. Never change, ACC.

Fourth-ranked Texas Tech has been a wagon all season. The Red Raiders rolled through the Big 12, with a lone loss coming by a slim margin to a healthy Arizona State team. In the first BYU-Texas Tech installment, Texas Tech squeezed the life out of BYU’s offense and won comfortably. 

Saturday’s Big 12 Championship Game was a repeat performance. The Red Raiders gave up an early BYU score and never looked back, kicking on the afterburners in a 34-7 rout to win its 12th game by 20 or more points, capture the Big 12 title, and secure a top-four seed and first-round bye in the College Football Playoff.

The Red Raiders are a complete team—and should not be taken lightly in the national title conversation. Quarterback Behren Morton keeps the offense on schedule and in rhythm in the passing game. Tailbacks J’Koby Williams and Cameron Dickey churn for hard yards and combined for 152 and a score on Saturday. And the defense, man, oh man, where do I begin? 

The Texas Tech defense is a boa constrictor in every sense of the word, and it looked every bit the part against BYU. The Red Raiders gave up just 200 yards of offense and forced four turnovers. But more than that, everything against them is hard-earned. There are no freebies. No gimmes. On Saturday afternoon, that group squashed BYU Bear Bachmeier (literally and physically), and by the second half, it looked like the freshman was seeing ghosts. 

BYU deserves credit for putting together a solid 11-2 season. There’s no shame in that. But the Cougars’ playoff case went up in smoke with another blowout loss. 

Texas Tech has made mincemeat of the Big 12 this season. I can’t wait to see the Red Raiders match up with teams from different leagues.

In a battle of G5 coaches leaving for greener pastures, it was Tulane and head coach Jon Sumrall that left their mark on the American Conference title game. After falling behind early, Tulane forced a bevy of North Texas turnovers and capitalized swiftly with 31 unanswered points across three quarters to capture the conference crown, 34-21, and book its place in the 2025 College Football Playoff.  

The start of this game was a beautiful display of God-fearing football, with both North Texas embarking on a 13-play touchdown drive before the Green Wave answered with a 16-play scoring drive of their own. It looked like it would be a back-and-forth affair, the type we’re used to seeing in a game of this magnitude. Then the wheels fell off for North Texas.

Star running back Caleb Hawkins exited the game with an injury. Tulane started heating up North Texas quarterback Drew Mestemaker, culminating in five sacks and seven TFLs. And the Green Wave were the beneficiaries of a few fortunate bounces. Like the time a punt struck a North Texas blocker, which Tulane recovered right before halftime and turned into a 24-7 lead.

North Texas deserves a ton of credit for having a heck of a season, but the offense had a rough go on Friday night. Mestemaker, usually a surgeon in the pocket, threw a trio of interceptions that made it tough for the offense to get going or sustain drives.

With the win, Tulane moves on to the College Football Playoff. It’s been a truly historic season for the Green Wave, and Sumrall deserves a ton of credit for elevating this program to new heights.

On Friday night, James Madison shook off a shaky start and pulled away late against an upstart Troy team, 31-14, to capture the Sun Belt title. And because Duke shocked Virginia on Saturday night, the Dukes now have a place in the 12-team College Football Playoff field. What an excellent story and season for James Madison and Bob Chesney. I have serious questions about how JMU will hold up once it reaches the playoff… but that’s a discussion for a different day.

Kennesaw State converted a 4th-and-14 with the game on the line and later scored a go-ahead touchdown with 51 seconds left to knock off Jacksonville State 19-15 to win the Conference USA title. The Owls won just two games in 2024 and remarkably went 10-3 this season. Kennesaw State is one of the best stories in all of college football, bar none.

Boise State poured it on UNLV, winning the Mountain West title game 38-21. It’s been a bit of a strange season by Boise State standards. But winning the conference title is no small feat. The coaching staff and players deserve a ton of credit for surviving some early and mid-season adversity to finish strong. 

Western Michigan’s defense dominated the Miami-Ohio offense en route to a 23-13 win to capture the MAC Championship. The MAC was pretty wonky this season, but the Broncos were the best team all year. It was nice to see them finish the job and walk out of Ford Field with a conference title trophy. 

What a finish! After 14 weeks of an incredible season, college football may have saved the best for last. We put out two episodes yesterday. The first was a recap of every conference championship game. The second was a reaction to the final CFP field.

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