The 12-team College Football Playoff is quickly becoming a college football betting staple for futures wagering, in its second season under this format.
Which teams will back up their recruiting rankings and preseason hype? And will anybody make a Cinderella run the way Indiana and Arizona State did last year in the inaugural 12-team Playoff? Here we go with our updated projection of the CFP field for the 2025 season after Week 4.
Projected College Football Playoff Field For 2025
Seed, Team | Conference | 2025 (Overall, Conference) |
1. Ohio State | Big Ten | 3-0 (0-0) |
2. Georgia | SEC | 3-0 (1-0) |
3. Miami | ACC | 4-0 (0-0) |
4. Penn State | Big Ten | 3-0 (0-0) |
5. LSU | SEC | 4-0 (1-0) |
6. Oregon | Big Ten | 4-0 (1-0) |
7. Texas | SEC | 3-1 (0-0) |
8, Iowa State | Big 12 | 4-0 (1-0) |
9. Florida State | ACC | 3-0 (0-0) |
10. Texas A&M | SEC | 3-0 (0-0) |
11. Oklahoma | SEC | 4-0 (1-0) |
12. Tulane | American | 3-1 (0-0) |
Of note for customers at sports betting sites contemplating wagers on college football: The seeding format has changed from last year's inaugural run at a 12-team field.
For the 2025 College Football Playoff, the teams will be seeded in order of their final CFP ranking, with no first-round byes guaranteed for conference champions. The five highest-ranked conference champions – including one from the Group of Five leagues – will be guaranteed a spot in the 12-team field. Last year, the top four seeds (and first-round byes) were awarded to the four highest-ranked conference champions, which led to ninth-ranked Boise State receiving the No. 3 seed and Big 12 champion Arizona State, which was 12th in the final CFP rankings, getting the No. 4 seed.
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Top CFP 2025 Contenders
This is Education Week – as in, we will all find out a lot about CFP contenders because major conference games are happening all over the place.
On Saturday, LSU (ranked fourth in the current Associated Press poll) visits No. 13 Ole Miss, No. 6 Oregon plays at No. 3 Penn State and No. 17 Alabama travels to No. 5 Georgia. Various operators have Oregon and Penn State among a handful of top national title favorites for CFP futures wagering and Georgia isn't far behind.
For now, we have five SEC teams in the projected field, but this situation will shake itself out in the next several weeks. Oklahoma is the new entrant in our CFP field this week. The bad news for the Sooners is that quarterback John Mateer is out for about a month with a broken hand. The good news for Oklahoma is that the defense – often a weakness in some recent seasons – looks legit.
OU is off this week, then has a bye disguised as a game against Kent State on Oct. 4. That gives coach Brent Venables and his staff two weeks to sort things out on offense before the big game on Oct. 10 against Texas. College football odds might change with the Mateer injury but Oklahoma could still contend for a CFP spot.
College Football Playoff Bubble Watch
Team, Conference | Odds | 2025 (Overall, Conference) |
Texas Tech, Big 12 | +175 | 4-0 (1-0) |
Ole Miss, SEC | +135 | 4-0 (2-0) |
Alabama, SEC | +105 | 2-1 (0-0) |
USC, Big Ten | +225 | 4-0 (2-0) |
Indiana, Big Ten | +170 | 4-0 (1-0) |
Aside from Indiana (more on that later) perhaps the most impressive win in Week 4 was Texas Tech's 34-10 pasting of Utah in Salt Lake City. The Red Raiders are squarely in the middle of the Big 12 race and their only remaining game against a currently ranked team is Nov. 8 at home against No. 25 BYU. Tech and Iowa State don't play each other in the regular season but they might have a showdown for the league championship and a spot in the CFP in early December. Texas Tech has +175 CFP odds with DraftKings Sportsbook, where you'll see Playoff odds for the bubble teams above and many more. We put these five teams in order of how close we think they are to contending for a CFP spot, not necessarily their current odds or rankings.
Now, about the Big Ten teams that we have in our Bubble Watch. USC has had a weak schedule thus far and the road ahead looks fairly smooth by Big Ten standards. The only daunting road game is Nov. 22 at Oregon and USC avoids Ohio State and Penn State altogether. Their annual clash with Notre Dame, Oct. 18 in South Bend, looks more winnable than in recent years.
Indiana got everyone's attention by smashing Illinois, 63-10, on Saturday. The reason the Hoosiers aren't higher on our list despite being ranked No. 11 is twofold. First, IU has games at Oregon (Oct. 11) and at Penn State (Nov. 8). Second, the Hoosiers again had a very weak nonconference schedule (Old Dominion, Kennesaw State and Indiana State). A weak schedule meant that Indiana barely snuck into last season's inaugural 12-team CFP field with an 11-1 record; a 10-2 mark this time around might not be enough.
At Caesars Sportsbook, Tulane still has +400 odds to make the CFP, the same as last week, despite the Green Wave's 45-10 loss at Ole Miss. Much like USF's similarly lopsided loss the week before at Miami, this result does not change our lean toward Tulane or USF as the American Conference's beat teams. But it's interesting to note that Caesars now has Memphis at +300 odds for the CFP, the best of any Group of 5 team.
