The 2024 College Football Playoff, the first ever 12-team tournament in the history of the sport, is complete. The Ohio State Buckeyes have won the National Championship. Unfortunately that means we all have to wait nearly seven months before watching the next college football game. However, that also means there's plenty of time to figure out who will win it all next year.

So why wait?

After crunching the numbers on returning players, incoming transfers, coaching changes, and key team performance metrics it's time to take the first data-driven swing at predicting the College Football Playoff for the 2025-2026 season.

As much talk as there's been about making a drastic change to the seeding there likely won't be any changes made to the 2025 College Football Playoff Bracket. However, after this upcoming season there is a "look-in" clause where decision-makers can reassess and restructure.

So, 2025 may be the last time we see a playoff with this structure, but as a reminder, the playoff bracket is not formed by the Top 12 ranked teams alone. The four highest ranked conference champions receive the first round byes and top four seeds. The highest remaining ranked teams fill out seeds five through twelve (including the fifth highest ranked conference champion). Let's dive in to how the data suggests things may fall in 2025. Spoiler alert: The SEC looks like they could be back on top of the conference rankings this season.

College Football Playoff Rankings Prediction 2025-26

1. Texas (1)
   
2. Ohio State (2)
3. Penn State (5)
4. Clemson (3)
5. Tennessee (6)
6. Georgia (7)
7. Oregon (8)
8. Notre Dame (9)
9. Arizona State (4)
10. LSU (10)
11. Michigan (11)
12. SMU
13. BYU
14. Miami
15. Kansas State
16. South Carolina
17. Alabama
18. Boise State (12)
19. Illinois
20. Florida
21. Iowa State
22. Ole Miss
23. Texas A&M
24. Duke
25. Indiana
    
    If the rankings do end up falling like this, then this would be how the College Football Playoff Bracket plays out:

Repeat College Football Playoff Teams in 2025

The first thing many avid college football fans may notice is that the 2025 College Football Playoff includes many of the same teams that we just saw compete in the first 12-team playoff. Is that just lazy copy and paste analysis? Nope.

While it was nice to see some fresh faces like Indiana, SMU, and Arizona State, and Boise State in the playoff this past year, in the end the biggest brands in the sport are likely going to dominate the playoff just like they always have before.

Seven of the returning 10 teams in this projected bracket are teams who ranked inside the final College Football Playoff Top 25 in at least seven of the last 11 years. That same group that consists of Ohio State, Clemson, Georgia, Oregon, Notre Dame, LSU and Penn State have all averaged a playoff ranking inside the Top 12 for more than the last decade.

Outside of those seven teams this bracket prediction also includes Texas, Arizona State, and Boise State as repeat College Football Playoff participants.

The Longhorns kick off their Arch Manning era at quarterback while returning some All-American defenders like linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. and edge defender Colin Simmons. Their offense should be consensus projected to finish Top 10 on both sides of the ball in 2025.

Arizona State and Boise State both return their emerging star QBs in Sam Leavitt and Maddux Madsen respectively. Both should be the favorites to win their conference giving their returning talents, coaching staff, and key performance metrics and finish to this past season despite losing their feature running backs.

New Faces in 2025 College Football Playoff

The only two "new faces" in the 2025 College Football Playoff here would be LSU and Michigan, two teams who have won a national championship in the last six years.

LSU returns quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, the majority of their defense. Plus, Brian Kelly has brought in a ton of incredible transfers as the Tigers currently rank first among all FBS teams in overall Transfer Portal classes.

Michigan just signed the number one recruit in the nation in Bryce Underwood to fix their quarterback room and have phenomenal direct replacements for most of their losses to the NFL Draft. Their offense couldn't get much worse than it was last year and yet they still defeated the eventual national champions in Ohio State. Their schedule is manageable in 2025 too, which should keep them in the playoff mix all year.

SEC's return to top of the conference rankings

Predicting exactly how a 12-team College Football Playoff Bracket will play out a year in advance is a little messy when trying to use large scale data, but the image above is a solid shot at what would happen in 2025. And if so? The SEC would certainly return to the top of the conference rankings immediately.

Texas winning the national championship isn't exactly controversial given they have the second highest odds to win (as of this writing) according to betting markets. The Longhorns return perhaps the most impressive raw talent at quarterback in the nation with Arch Manning and have a slew of high pedigree talents around him.

Drew Allar taking the Penn State Nittany Lions through another easy path past Boise State and Arizona State would be absolute chalk to the semifinals, but they would certainly be underdogs to a stacked Texas Longhorns team. Penn State does return quite a few talents like Dani Dennis-Sutton at edge, their dynamic running back duo of Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen, and more. However, they still likely fall just short of greatness.

The other side of the bracket may look controversial for some but it is not.

Tennessee Vols QB Nico Iamaleava emerged as a Top 20 quarterback in the nation down the stretch based on a 16-variable assessment of quality quarterback play (using metrics like passer rating, EPA per play, QBR, yards per play, etc.). If he takes another step forward and their defense that returns the vast majority of the talent that gave the Vols a Top 5 unit this past season they would likely be favored in every playoff game until the semifinals (at least) in this scenario.

LSU Tigers QB Garrett Nussmeier grew into one of the best passers in all of college football as well last year and his weapons might actually be better this season. The Tigers added wide receivers Barion Brown of Kentucky and Nic Anderson of Oklahoma, then completely revamped the offensive line. Imagining them defeating an Ohio State team with stud wide receiver Jeremiah Smith and star safety Caleb Downs returning might seem odd today, but the Buckeyes are losing around 20 NFL Draft prospects from their roster this year.

It's still early, but the 2025 College Football Playoff looks like it's going to give us a ton of great games yet again between some of biggest brands in the sport. Let's hope this bracket prediction is wrong somewhere though so we get an Indiana or two in the field.

On3’s 2025 quarterback rankings will have SEC fans everywhere shaking their heads in disbelief

Sam Leavitt is too high, Cade Klubnik is too low and Arch Manning is right in the middle

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We'll be back with more College Football Playoff coverage here at A to Z Sports all season long! Follow me (@FF_TravisM) and A to Z Sports (@AtoZSportsNFL) on X for all the latest football news!

And if you'd like to reflect on the epic finish to this year's College Football Playoff enjoy some highlights from the Ohio State versus Notre Dame championship game!

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