As this piece is being written, we are less than 72 hours out from Georgia Tech and Florida State kicking off the 2024-2025 college football season in Ireland. After over seven months without college football action, it's once again that time of year.
This season is set to look quite different than any before it, as the FBS subdivision-- the highest level of the sport -- will for the first-time utilize a 12-team playoff to determine it's national champion. It adds eight additional teams to the playoff system which began in 2014-2015, and is a far cry from the days of the BCS or Bowl Coalition selecting just two programs to compete for the honor, and the split national titles of the early-mid 1900's.
Each week this season, HailWV will be releasing a prediction for what we expect the CFP field to look like -- it will not necessarily reflect what we expect the rankings themselves to look like each week, but how the field would be seeded. As a reminder, the official process for selecting the College Football Playoff (CFP) field is as follows:
"The CFP Selection Committee ranks the top 25 teams at the end of the season, and the 12 playoff participants consist of the five highest-ranked conference champions, plus the next seven highest-ranked teams. The four highest-ranked conference champions will be seeded one through four and receive a first-round bye. The schools seeded five through eight will host those seeded nine through 12 in first-round games. The quarterfinals and semifinals rotate annually among six bowl games – the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, Vrbo Fiesta Bowl, Capital One Orange Bowl, Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential and the Allstate Sugar Bowl."From the CFP website
So without further ado, let's get to our preseason edition of the 2024-2025 CFP predictions.
Rank | Team | Bid Type | Previous Ranking |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Georgia | SEC Champion | N/A |
2 | Oregon | Big 10 Champion | N/A |
3 | NC State | ACC Champion | N/A |
4 | Utah | Big 12 Champion | N/A |
5 | Texas | At-Large | N/A |
6 | Ohio State | At-Large | N/A |
7 | LSU | At-Large | N/A |
8 | Notre Dame | At-Large | N/A |
9 | Alabama | At-Large | N/A |
10 | Michigan | At-Large | N/A |
11 | Florida State | At-Large | N/A |
12 | Appalachian State | Sun Belt Champion (G5 Representative) | N/A |
Right now, we're projecting the SEC to lead the way with four bids, making up roughly one-third of the bracket. We see three Big 10 schools finding their way into the field, two ACC schools, and just one Big 12 school. Each of those four conferences will have their champion somewhere in the top four seeds -- right now, we have Georgia, Oregon, North Carolina State, and Utah as our projected champions in each conference respectively.
The rest of the field will be be made up by the highest ranked Group of Five champion -- our projection is Appalachian State winning the Sun belt and taking that spot -- and seven at-large bids. We expect traditional SEC, Big 10, and ACC powers such as Texas, Ohio State, LSU, Alabama, Michigan, and Florida State to occupy those spots, as well as perrenial Independent power Notre Dame. Unfortunately for Big 12 fans, we believe the league may cannibalize itself to an extent that they miss out on an at-large bid altogether.