College Football: Magic Ball Sports’ 2025 College Football Playoff Predictions
Seeding the field, picking the Group-of-Five bid and running the gambit to predict the 2025-26 champion.
Jake McCreven — August 3 2025
Last year I correctly picked half of the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff field, with Georgia, Oregon, Texas, Ohio State, Notre Dame and Boise State all punching their tickets to the post season. I nailed three quarterfinalists in Georgia, Ohio State and Notre Dame, which was punctuated by an Ohio State championship, as I had predicted.
I’m not perfect, as much as I’d like to be. My two most egregious picks (Oklahoma State and Florida State) combined to go 5-19 and finished 16th in their respective conferences. I also whiffed on NC State (whom I predicted to finish 10-2 in the ACC), Alabama (9-4, bowl loss to Michigan), Ole Miss (second team left out of the field) and Miami (whom I predicted to finish 10-2 and sneak in as the No. 11 seed).
I’ve spent substantially more time this summer than the two previous years working on the Playoff field, simulating all 136 FBS schedules multiple times to ensure I had reached the most realistic and organic results — taking into account trap games, bye weeks and other extenuating circumstances that could impact a team’s win-loss record.
The Field
Penn State, Clemson and Notre Dame all finish the regular season with zero losses, with the Nittany Lions and Tigers also winning their respective conference championship games. Notre Dame, despite not winning a conference title, steals the final first round bye with SOS victories over Miami, Texas A&M, Pitt and Navy. Texas’ lone loss at Florida was not reprimanded enough to drop it below Clemson, whose best win is at Georgia Tech.
Kansas State and Boise State round out the automatic qualifiers. The Broncos’ lone slip up? An away loss versus Notre Dame. Kansas State steals the Big XII title from Baylor, who also qualified as an at-large. The Wildcats took home marquee victories over Iowa State, Utah and Baylor. The Bears dropped one game in the regular season (Utah) before losing in the Big XII title game against KSU.
The remaining five bids are made up of a splattering of SEC and Big 10 teams. Ohio State, despite its three losses, stole an at-large bid over Oregon due to strength of schedule victories over Washington, Michigan and Illinois (which eliminated the Illini). The Buckeyes stormed to the Big 10 title game after a victory over rival Michigan before falling to Penn State for a second time (lost to Texas as well).
Georgia, Alabama, LSU and Florida round out the field — all from the SEC. These four teams beat each other up; Georgia conquered the Tide in Athens early in October, LSU took down Florida in Death Valley and the Gators upset the Dawgs in the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party later that month.
The Tide get the edge — despite a regular season loss versus Georgia — with victories over LSU and Oklahoma and an appearance in the SEC Championship game. Kirby Smart and the Dawgs follow closely behind, with its two lone blemishes coming versus Florida (neutral site) and at home versus Texas.
LSU’s 10-win season was punctuated by wins over Florida, Texas A&M and Oklahoma (who combined to go a scintillating 38-8). Brian Kelly’s squad is fresh off an extra week of rest, with a head-to-head loss versus the Tide costing LSU a spot in the SEC title game.
