Who will the 2024-25 College Football Playoffs?

It's time to break down the bracket and pick a champion for the coming season.

For the last few weeks I’ve been analyzing my prospective 2024-25 College Football Playoff field and stress testing the different teams based on the following criteria:

I analyzed all 12 teams in groups of four.

• Group 1: #12 seed Liberty, #11 seed Texas A&M, #10 seed USC, #9 seed Iowa

• Group 2: #8 seed Ole Miss, #7 seed Texas, #6 seed Oregon, #5 seed Tennessee

• Group 3: #4 seed Utah, #3 seed Miami, #2 seed Georgia, #1 seed Ohio State

During this process, or in the fall camp reports that have trickled out of various programs since this time, I’ve had the following thoughts about some of these teams.

Boise State named an unknown, low 3-star kid as their quarterback over 5-star USC transfer Malachi Nelson…part of me thinks this isn’t great, part of me thinks “Boise is back!” Still rolling with Liberty in that 12 spot.

Tennessee has had some issues with depth and health in the secondary, which is concerning, but part of me thinks they’ll be a little better than people realize because of the added transfers.

Texas hasn’t really established a no. 1 receiver and there’s some question over whether they’ll have NFL guys for Quinn Ewers to throw to anywhere near the level of Adonai Mitchell and Xavier Worthy. Hard to say at this point. I think they’ll be in good shape for the regular season but whether or not they’ll have playoff-winning firepower is tough to tell.

Texas A&M was terrifying their own fanbase with shaky fall camp reports until recently when it was revealed 5-star freshman phenom Terry Bussey was A) taking snaps at wide receiver and B) immediately the best player on the team. That’s not a great endorsement of the older guys BUT, Bussey is a special talent. It makes me feel better about including them in the field.

Notre Dame decided to roll with a freshman left tackle named Antonie Knapp rather than proven liability Tosh Baker. The Fighting Irish aren’t totally out of this. I’m also reconsidering Michigan as a potential playoff team in light of news that walk-on quarterback Davis Warren is making a play for the starting quarterback job. If they get game managing-passing from that position, their run game and D could do the rest of the work to put them in playoff contention. That might come at USC’s expense.

But for today, let’s review the matchups I already committed to: