The Athletic has live coverage of the College Football Playoff bracket reveal.
And now, 20 Final Thoughts from Championship Weekend, an ending I’m nominating for Best Picture.
1. The final night of the 2025 regular season was about the most fitting 2025 ending one could possibly have written. But someone reading an account of it as recently as 2023 would have laughed it off as impossible.
Indiana and Duke are Power 4 champions. The Hoosiers are going to be the No. 1 seed in the 12-team College Football Playoff. Texas Tech will be a top-four seed while Texas will be in the Citrus Bowl, while Tulane and James Madison are more certain to make the field than Alabama and Miami. Or the entire ACC.
So much for Nick Saban’s prediction several years ago that NIL and the portal would help the rich get richer.
2. While all those teams are great stories, as is 10-2 Vanderbilt, Indiana’s overnight ascendance to the top of the sport under second-year coach Curt Cignetti laps anything I’ve seen over the last 30 years watching and covering college football. Northwestern’s 1995 Rose Bowl season was similarly out-of-nowhere, but the Wildcats didn’t beat the No. 1 team in the country. Bill Snyder pulled similar miracles at Kansas State, but that was a more gradual build.
Indiana just up and went from 2-10/4-8/3-9 in Tom Allen’s last three seasons to 23-2 in Cignetti’s first two. And Indiana is not close to being done.
3. The second-ranked Hoosiers won a 13-10 slugfest against previously undefeated Ohio State to claim their first Big Ten championship since 1967. Potential Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza made a couple beautiful throws on the go-ahead touchdown drive in the third quarter, but the Hoosiers did this with defense. One that shut out Julian Sayin, Jeremiah Smith, Carnell Tate and Bo Jackson after the 10:08 mark of the second quarter. With a little help from Buckeyes kicker Jayden Fielding shanking what should have been a game-tying 27-yard field goal in the last three minutes.
It was the type of Big Boy game you’d expect to see between two bluebloods, and the type of Big Ten game you’d expect to see Ohio State win. But that’s not how things work anymore. Indiana will be the deserved No. 1 seed, and hopefully every living person who spent their college years on that campus will find their way to Pasadena on New Year’s Day.
4. As much as we view Ohio State as the annual class of the Big Ten, this becomes the fifth straight season someone else won the conference title. I’m sure Ryan Day and his players are disappointed, but let’s be real. That program measures itself by national titles. And I wouldn’t rule out the Buckeyes turning around and winning another one.
Day’s team may have had a hard time getting up for another Huge Game after winning last week’s Huge Game. It’s not like they played poorly. They averaged 5.8 yards per play, and Sayin and Smith connected for a couple of their usual big plays.
But they stalled out in short-yardage situations and in the red zone, most notably when Sayin failed to convert a fourth-and -1 run at the Indiana 5 late in the third quarter. One might contend that’s a product of the Buckeyes not having faced a comparable foe all season. If so, good thing they did now.
So that’s the top of the bracket. As for the bottom …
5. The idea that then-10-2 Alabama might miss the field if it lost in the SEC Championship Game didn’t seem like a real possibility last Tuesday when the committee moved the Tide up a spot to No. 9, ahead of Notre Dame. But that was before they played the game. No. 3 Georgia whupped Bama 28-7, holding the Tide to minus-3 rushing yards, in avenging their Sept. 27 home loss to Kirby Smart’s nemesis. Ty Simpson, under heavy duress all game, completed just 19 of 39 passes. The Tide lost for the second time since Nov. 15.
Could the Tide drop out of the College Football Playoff after Georgia’s commanding performance? (Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)
6. It was a good day to be No. 10 Notre Dame (10-2) and No. 12 Miami (10-2), sitting at home watching No. 9 Alabama and No. 11 BYU both get trounced. It’s those two and the Tide fighting for the last two at-large spots. Alabama still has wins over current No. 3 Georgia (on the road) and No. 14 Vanderbilt (10-2) on its resume. But also, that awful 31-17 Week 1 loss at Florida State, which finished 5-7. And a troubling rushing offense ranked in the 100s nationally.
Surely the committee wouldn’t punish a team for playing a 13th game and losing, you might ask. Especially to a team it already beat.
Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is the committee already has a long history of dropping conference title-game losers.
7. Going back to the first year of the CFP in 2014 (excluding 2020), the 44 Power 5 teams that lost their championship games (not including a couple that were unranked) dropped an average of 2.0 spots in the final rankings. The drop was a steeper 2.7 average for the 25 that lost by two touchdowns or more. Only eight of those 25 dropped by one spot or less. One spot is all Alabama can afford to fall.
Most of those teams came in a four-team era, and most of those rankings decisions did not affect the four-team field. There were a few, though, including one eerily similar precedent. In 2017, No. 2 Auburn, then 10-2, lost a SEC championship rematch with No. 6 Georgia 28-7 (same score!) and dropped five spots. Meanwhile, 11-1 Alabama moved up from No. 5 to No. 4 while watching from home.
Same thing in 2022. No. 4 USC, then 11-1, fell apart in the second half against Utah in a 47-24 Pac-12 championship debacle. No. 5 Ohio State, also 11-1 but idle, took the Trojans’ place.
8. Given that committee chairman Hunter Yurachek said on Tuesday that the members have been debating for weeks who’s better between Alabama and Notre Dame, the path of least resistance would be to just flip them back. In which case, the committee gets out of finally confronting the Miami-Notre Dame head-to-head tiebreaker by keeping Alabama wedged in between them. The Canes are out.
Or, the committee could bump the Tide the customary 2.0 spots, in which case both Miami and Notre Dame get in, and the Alabama haters of the world rejoice. Most of the public would probably be OK with it, but SEC commissioner Greg Sankey would be calling Mercedes-Benz Stadium the next morning to cancel all future SEC championship games.
Finally, the committee could leave Alabama where it is, putting Notre Dame and Miami right next to each other for the first time, at which point it would have no choice but to finally flip them. If so, which public sentiment would win out? Delight that the committee stuck it to the Irish, or fury that Alabama can lose two of its last three Power 4 games, the latter by three touchdowns, and still suffer no consequences. Again.
9. Georgia coach Kirby Smart must have felt an overpowering sense of catharsis Saturday, watching his team take it to Alabama on the same field where the Tide cost the Bulldogs a national championship in 2017 (on second-and-26) and SEC championships in 2018, 2021 and 2023. It did not initially appear 2025 would be a vintage Smart team, but the Dawgs’ defense found a new gear once the calendar turned to November, shutting down Texas (35-10), ending Georgia Tech QB Haynes King’s Heisman campaign (16-9) and holding Kalen DeBoer’s offense to 209 yards (28-7).
Georgia will likely be the CFP No. 2 seed for the second straight season, but whereas last year’s team limped into its quarterfinal against Notre Dame, this team goes in as hot as any this side of Indiana.
10. No. 4 Texas Tech (12-1) never even appeared in a Big 12 championship game over the conference’s first three decades, yet its elusive first title felt inevitable by midway through the first season. The school’s much-chronicled offseason spending spree helped build a nationally elite defense that once again suffocated BYU freshman quarterback Bear Bachmeier, this time in a 34-7 Red Raiders rout. How good was Joey McGuire’s team in the regular season? All 12 of its wins came by at least 23 points.
But there will still be skeptics due to the lack of respect and eyeballs for the new Big 12. I cannot wait to see Jacob Rodriguez, Ben Roberts and company go against a prolific offense from another conference. Assuming Tech gets a bye, its first matchup will come in a 3 vs. 6 or 4 vs. 5 quarterfinal. That defense going against No. 5 Oregon would be a fun, fun draw.
Texas Tech dominated the regular season on the way to its first Big 12 title. (Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)
11. What started as a running joke a month ago, after Duke lost to UConn, really did come to fruition: The 8-5 Blue Devils are ACC champions. They finished 1-3 out of conference, 6-2 in conference, won a five-way tiebreaker to get to Charlotte and knocked off 10-2 Virginia in a wild 27-20 overtime victory. Duke’s football donors went all in on this season, making Tulane transfer Darian Mensah one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in the country (north of $3 million per year). While he didn’t take the smoothest path, Mensah helped deliver the school’s first conference title since Steve Spurrier’s 1989 team.
But Duke’s triumph may prove to be the ACC’s worst nightmare. All day and night, ESPN kept putting a graphic on its screen that showed Sun Belt champ James Madison, 12-1, with a 99 percent chance to make the Playoff as the fifth AQ if Virginia lost. Our own Austin Mock concurs. I don’t hold such strong convictions, mainly because this is a subjective decision and an unprecedented situation. But JMU’s strength of record ratings, even against a Sun Belt schedule, is considerably higher than Duke’s at 8-5. And JMU was already ranked.
If so, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips had better hope Miami gets the call instead. Because a Power 4 conference failing to put even one of its 17 teams in the CFP would do long-lasting damage to that league’s reputation.
12. Did Indiana’s Mendoza wrap up the Heisman by beating Ohio State? Probably. It’s hard to make a more memorable final impression than knocking off the No. 1 team in the country, then looking straight into a TV camera and shouting. “The Hoosiers are flippin’ champs. Let’s Go!”
“THE HOOSIERS ARE FLIPPIN’ CHAMPS!” 🗣️@IndianaFootball QB Fernando Mendoza was with @JennyTaft after winning the @bigten championship ‼️ pic.twitter.com/qNJBmXCSfW
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) December 7, 2025
But this Heisman voter will take right up until the Monday afternoon deadline going back and forth between Mendoza and Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia. Both are among the nation’s leading passers. Both led their programs to historic heights. Pavia has a leg up statistically and did more damage with his legs. But Mendoza beat two top-five teams, Oregon and Ohio State, both away from Bloomington.
Also, even if I had decided, I’d get my ballot revoked if I told you who I picked.
13. Florida fans should be feeling pretty good about their new coach, Jon Sumrall, who will be leading Tulane (11-2) into the Playoff following its 34-21 win over North Texas (11-2) in the American championship game. The Green Wave’s defense overpowered a UNT offense that came in averaging nearly 50 points per game.
Willie Fritz began Tulane’s renaissance with his 2022 team that beat USC in the Cotton Bowl. Sumrall, who will remain through the Playoff, came in two years ago and elevated the program even further, even after losing Mensah and all but five other starters from last season. Tulane beat Power 4 bowl teams Northwestern and Duke early this season but lost 45-10 at Ole Miss. Tulane’s most likely first-round opponent is Oregon or Ole Miss.
14. We’ve seen a scourge of FCS schools move up to the FBS ranks over the last decade, many of them not equipped to do so financially. Then there’s James Madison. The No. 25 Dukes (12-1), who are 40-10 in their four seasons since moving up, took the next step Friday and claimed their first Sun Belt championship with a 31-14 win over Troy. Bob Chesney took over for Cignetti two years ago and didn’t just keep the train rolling but also has the program on the brink of a CFP appearance that would bring unprecedented exposure for a school that was still playing for FCS titles as recently as 2021.
In a recurring theme, Chesney has already accepted a new job, at UCLA, but like Sumrall, will stay with JMU if it gets the call Sunday. I fear it will be a long day for the Sun Belt boys should they draw Oregon (or anyone else in that range), and I’m sure we’ll hear calls to attach a minimum ranking to that fifth automatic berth. I say let them have their fun.
15. While No. 11 BYU (11-2) will come up just short of the Playoff, it was still a good week for Cougars fans. Coach Kalani Sitake resisted a reported $10 million annual deal from Penn State to remain at his alma mater after an 11th-hour social media “love bomb” orchestrated by mega-booster Jason McGown (a.k.a. the Cookie Man). BYU has now won 11 games in back-to-back seasons and could soon get a chance to prove itself against a Big Ten foe. The Cougars are expected to return to the Alamo Bowl, where they routed Colorado last season, this time to face 9-3 USC.
16. Speaking of Penn State, AD Pat Kraft’s bumbling 54-day coaching search ended with a more logical candidate than some of the guys he previously offered. Matt Campbell worked wonders in 10 seasons at historically woeful Iowa State. The program reached eight wins once from 1979-2016. Campbell did it five times in the last nine seasons, including a historic 11-win campaign in 2024. After very nearly getting the USC job in 2022 (that went to Lincoln Riley), the Ohio native largely bided his time for the right opportunity. This one was that.
While going 72-55 (.567) was historically good at Iowa State, it does not guarantee he can regularly win 11 games and contend for national titles at Penn State. But that was always the risk of firing James Franklin and his .698 winning percentage. While it was time for a change, no realistic candidate was an obvious upgrade. You just pick someone promising and hope for the best.
17. Even a down season by Boise State standards ended with its third straight Mountain West championship. QB Maddux Madsen, who’d missed the past three games with an injury, had one of the best performances of his career as the Broncos (9-4) won 38-21 at home over Dan Mullen-led UNLV (10-3). No Fiesta Bowls this year for Boise, which will instead head to the LA Bowl to face 8-4 Washington, but Spencer Danielson’s program will enter the new Pac-12 next season as the clear-cut alpha in that conference.
18. There’s parity, and then there’s the MAC. Western Michigan (9-4) became the sixth different league champion in six seasons with a 23-13 win over Miami of Ohio (7-6). Third-year coach Lance Taylor, who as a position coach mentored star running backs Christian McCaffrey at Stanford and Kyren Williams at Notre Dame, has his latest star in Jalen Buckley, who broke touchdowns runs of 67 and 64 yards against the RedHawks. It’s the program’s first crown since P.J. Fleck’s 13-win Cotton Bowl team in 2016.
19. Kennesaw State football only began in 2015 and only moved up to the FBS in 2024, when it went 2-10. A year later, the Owls jumped to 10 wins and claimed their first Conference USA championship with a 19-15 road win over defending champ Jacksonville State (8-5). Credit athletic director Milton Overton for a wildly successful hire in first-year coach Jerry Mack, who had last been a head coach at NC Central in 2017 and was most recently a running backs coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Mack led one of the biggest turnarounds in the country this season.
20. Finally, the most improbable result in college football Saturday did not come in Indianapolis or in Charlotte, but rather Fargo, N.D. No. 17 Illinois State (10-4) pulled off a second-round FCS shocker, topping juggernaut North Dakota State 29-28 on the Bison’s home turf. The Redbirds did it despite their own quarterback, Tommy Rittenhouse, throwing five interceptions.
North Dakota State was not only the defending national champ (and winner of 10 of the last 14 crowns), but also undefeated this season, having beaten Illinois State 33-16 earlier this season. It’s the first time the Bison haven’t reached the quarterfinal since 2009, their last losing season.
So much for the rich getting richer.