2025 College Football Playoff picture: Each week’s most important game in shaping 12-team race

In the last month since the confetti fell on Ohio State’s national championship, the college football world has collectively turned its attention to the season ahead. The transfer portal activity has calmed, the coaching carousel is nearing its final rotations, and the league schedules have put games on the calendar to excite fans for upcoming season. 

The 2025 college football schedule doesn’t have as much uncertainty has the previous season, because now we have seen one year with mega conferences and taken part in the 12-team College Football Playoff discussion. Expectations have been set on how the upcoming year will play out based on what we saw in 2024, which gives us the opportunity to identify the pivot points in the playoff race in 2025. 

That’s our task today, looking at the entirety of the college football schedule as it has been announced and selecting one game from each week that will play a role in the playoff race. As we learned, the beginning of any CFP race starts with the conference title races and key nonconference games that can play a role in seeding decisions later in the season. There are also considerations regarding the at-large opportunities available to different conferences, and how that availability might impact the CFP stakes of each matchup. 

So let’s dive in, from Week 0 to Week 14, with one game each week that will play a role in the CFP race.  

We don’t have a lot of competition here with just four games on the Week 0 slate, but this rivalry game has played a role in the Big 12 title race before and is expected to be a key data point again in 2025. When you have a conference like the Big 12, where it’s possible to see four teams end up tied for first place in the standings, every head-to-head result among potential contenders carries with it tiebreaker advantages that could pay off at the end of the year.  

Week 1: Texas at Ohio State 

We do have a pretty stellar Week 1 schedule in terms of high-profile nonconference matchups, and what makes things even more exciting is seeing so many of those games being played in home stadiums as opposed to neutral sites. Alabama has to travel to Tallahassee for its opener against a Florida State team looking to rebound from last year’s disappointments; Clemson is playing host to LSU in its version of Death Valley; and Sunday night’s showcase on Labor Day weekend features the latest chapter in the Notre Dame-Miami matchup with a showdown in South Florida. 

But the headliner is the rematch of this year’s Cotton Bowl semifinal. Ryan Day and Steve Sarkisian could be leading the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country into battle. This won’t be a make-or-break game for either team’s playoff chances with so much season left to play, but the winner will have arguably the best win of the season on their profile for the rest of the year.  

The Big 12’s best chance for an at-large team seems to be Baylor, which opens the year by hosting Auburn in Week 1 and then traveling to Dallas to take on last year’s ACC runner-up in SMU. If the Bears, which we do project to be among the contenders for the Big 12 in 2025 with quarterback Sawyer Robertson leading the way, can sweep both games, they will enter Big 12 play with a respectable national ranking that can boost the profile of the entire conference. Other nonconference games of note here include Michigan traveling to Oklahoma and a renewal of the Kansas-Missouri rivalry. As the ACC and Big 12 battle for at-large respect, however, this game could end up playing a role in how teams are ranked at the end of the year. 

Beating Texas A&M in College Station was one the of the keys to Notre Dame maintaining its position in the rankings as it rebuilt its profile week-by-week in the wake of the upset loss to Northern Illinois. That same value will be hanging in the balance for both teams in South Bend as the Aggies look to pick up the impressive nonconference win they missed out on in 2024, while Notre Dame will either be surging out of a win at Miami in Week 1 or looking to bounce back after falling to the Hurricanes. Notre Dame’s playoff outlook will be influenced significantly by these Week 1 and Week 3 games, and playing at home will make the result a tone-setter heading into the rest of their schedule.  

While Florida-Miami and Michigan-Nebraska may pack more punch in the eyes of some, it’s hard to find a week that’s more significant for the AAC’s CFP chances. The AAC missed out on the CFP in Year 1 of the 12-team format, which served as a disappointing development for a conference that regularly put teams in the New Year’s Six and even sent its champion to the four-team CFP back in 2021. Tulane and Memphis are expected to be among the title contenders in the conference, and these two games against SEC opponents provide the opportunity to notch the kind of win that the CFP committee will take note of when stacking conference champions against each other at the end of the year.  

There are a couple of Saturdays that get circled early in the offseason, and Saturday, Sept. 27, is absolutely one of those days with six CFP hopefuls playing in conference games that will set the stage for each race and award the winners with a victory that could bolster at-large profiles. And while the return trip of last year’s Alabama-Georgia epic and the latest edition of the LSU-Ole Miss rivalry will get their deserved shine, our attention is on the rematch of the electrifying 2024 Big Ten Championship Game. Oregon outlasted Penn State 45-37 to round out a 13-0 debut in Big Ten play, but now the setting gets moved to Happy Valley, where the Nittany Lions will be seeking revenge. There are only three games between the “Big Four” in the Big Ten (Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Oregon), and this is not only one of them, but the only one Oregon will play against the other three. 

Week 6: Kansas State at Baylor 

We’re bringing Baylor back one more time into the spotlight since this will be one of the most important conference games on the Bears’ schedule. Kansas State is one of the co-favorites to win the Big 12 in the betting markets (with Arizona State), and depending on how Baylor performed in those two nonconference games at the beginning of the year, we could see this Oct. 4 showdown prove to be among one of the top matchups of the conference schedule. There are other great conference games on this week’s schedule like Miami at Florida State and Texas at Florida, but again, the Big 12 logjam makes this carry even more weight in terms of the conference title race, and therefore the College Football Playoff race. 

Week 7: Texas vs. Oklahoma   

Steve Sarkisian holds a 2-1 edge on Brent Venables in the Red River Rivalry record books and a combined 113-37 edge on the three scoreboards thanks to two lopsided wins. But that is not going to stop this game from being a potential land mine for a Longhorns team chasing the SEC and national title. While the Sooners are not expected to be an at-large candidate for the CFP, there will be significant stakes for a coaching staff that enters 2025 under pressure to win big. One other spot to note here is that both Ohio State (at Illinois) and Michigan (at USC) are playing road games against quality opponents in what could be a shake-up week in the Big Ten title race.     

Week 8: SMU at Clemson  

This is another difficult week to make one pick with conference title and CFP stakes across the country. Georgia (vs. Ole Miss) and Alabama (vs. Tennessee) have a chance to exact revenge from regular-season road losses in 2024, and Notre Dame will play host to a USC team that was extremely competitive when the two rivals squared off in last year’s regular-season finale. But our focus returns to the ACC, where the title race will be impacted first by a Louisville-Miami game on Friday night and then by the rematch of last year’s ACC Championship Game as SMU makes its first-ever trip to Death Valley to play Clemson.   

Week 9: BYU at Iowa State  

BYU has a chance to be a factor in the Big 12 race once again, not only because of the team returning under coach Kalani Sitake, but because of a conference draw that sees the Cougars avoid some of the teams expected to compete for the league title in 2025. But schedule luck fades as we get deeper into the year, and a trip to Ames to face QB Rocco Becht and the reigning Big 12 runner-up will test BYU’s bonafides against the league’s contenders. We’ve also go our eyes on Texas A&M at LSU in this week, but given the scarcity of bids potentially available to the Big 12, this showdown could carry more CFP weight. 

Week 10: Penn State at Ohio State 

By the end of last season, the CFP selection committee rewarded both Ohio State for its win against Penn State and gave credit to the Nittany Lions for their competitiveness against the Buckeyes. That’s the kind of power that the Ohio State-Penn State rivalry holds in the modern era. Regardless of result, these two programs will see an impact in how they are viewed against the other national title contenders. This week will also feature Georgia-Florida, Miami at SMU and a pair of Big 12 games of note with Arizona State at Iowa State and Texas Tech at Kansas State. 

Week 11: LSU at Alabama 

While the winner of Alabama-LSU no longer has a smooth path paved to the SEC Championship Game, it still has been a factor in the conference title race nearly every season last decade. Since 2014, either Alabama or LSU has been a participant in nine of the 11 SEC Championship Games. The Crimson Tide’s victory in this rivalry last year gave them an inroad to Atlanta before stumbling against Oklahoma late in the season. This week will also feature a key ACC matchup with Florida State at Clemson and one of the tougher new-age road trips for Oregon as the Ducks visit Kinnick Stadium to take on Iowa.   

Week 12: Texas at Georgia 

After playing an intense back-and-forth in the regular season and then going to overtime in the SEC Championship Game, the latest edition of this rivalry will clearly play a huge role in the CFP picture. We’re not projecting that the loser of this game is out of the CFP by any means, but the implications for the conference title race and playoff seeding will be huge for two teams that that could both start the year inside the top five of the national rankings. While Clemson at Louisville and Florida at Ole Miss carry potential value from a conference title or at-large perspective, the shuffling inside the top 10 coming out of the Texas-Georgia result could impact far more than the two teams involved. 

Week 13: Tennessee at Florida 

After a one-and-done showing in the program’s first-ever CFP appearance, look for Tennessee to come back with a strong response in 2025. The Volunteers are currently tied for third with Alabama in the SEC championship odds, trailing only Texas and Georgia on the board, and with QB Nico Iamaleava poised for a step forward, this is a team that should be in the thick of the CFP race again. Will the Vols be strong enough of a candidate to have a clear edge in Gainesville in November? That’s yet to be determined, but whether it’s SEC title implications or building the case for a CFP at-large bid for either team, there’s definitely a lot on the line in this new spot on the calendar for two long-time rivals. 

Week 14: Ohio State at Michigan 

The assignment or prompt matters, because any preview of the 2025 college football schedule must list Ohio State at Michigan as the game of the week. It does not matter whether you’re predicting CFP implications or games that fans are most anticipating, the answer to all of it is “yes.” 

It does not even matter that Ohio State lost this game and went on to win the national championship, because the implications stemming for a win or loss for both teams exceeds the limits of any postseason format. Ohio State has to beat Michigan, and Michigan wants nothing more than to beat Ohio State for a fifth straight season. Yes, there is plenty more to keep in consideration for CFP reasons like Texas A&M at Texas, Clemson at South Carolina and the Iron Bowl, but the pressure packed into the Big House when the two most recent national champions square off is where the Week 14 spotlight must start in any conversation.