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mark schlabach
After looking from outside last year, alabama And miami We can breathe a sigh of relief because the Crimson Tide and Hurricanes were the last major teams selected – before Notre Dame – The 12-team College Football Playoff field was announced Sunday.
undefeated big ten champion Indiana (13–0) earned the No. 1 seed, while two groups of 5 teams – American Conference champions tulane (11-2) and Sun Belt champ james madison (12-1) — Were selected for the second iteration of the 12-team CFP field.
The Hoosiers won their first Big Ten title since 1945 with a 13–10 victory. Ohio State On Saturday, the No. 2 seeded Buckeyes (12-1), along with No. 3, will receive a first-round bye Georgia (12-1) and No. 4 texas tech (12-1).
The 12-team CFP bracket is set‼️
Did your team make the cut?@CFBPlayoff pic.twitter.com/tkdTkChBrg
– ESPN (@espn) 7 December 2025
The Fighting Irish (10-2) were the first team eliminated from the field, and Miami (10-2) received the final at-large berth after moving up two spots to No. 10 after the 12-person CFP Selection Committee ultimately made the decision.
The Hurricanes defeated the Fighting Irish 27–24 in the opener on August 31 in Miami, but they were not ranked ahead of Notre Dame until the final rankings on Sunday. Miami is the ACC’s highest-ranked team, but did not qualify for the league’s championship game.
CFP selection committee chairman Hunter Yurachek said Miami’s head-to-head victory was not the deciding factor until the Hurricanes jumped ship. BYU In the CFP rankings and were rated alongside the Irish.
“Once we got Miami ahead of BYU, we had that side-by-side comparison that everyone was hungry for,” Yurachek said, adding that he encouraged committee members to go back and watch the Notre Dame-Miami game from Labor Day weekend as the committee debated the two teams on Sunday morning. “You look at those two teams on paper, and they’re almost equal in their schedule strength, their common opponents, results against common opponents.
“But one metric we had to rely on again was head-to-head.”
BYU dropped from 11th to 12th in the committee’s rankings after losing 34-7 to Texas Tech in Saturday’s Big 12 title game.
First round games will be played at the campus sites of the higher seeded teams.
Miami will play at number 7 Texas A&M in a Dec. 20 first-round game (12 p.m. ET, ESPN/ABC). The Aggies opened as 5.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook.
This is the first time that the two champions of Group of Five have been included in the 12-team field. James Madison, which officially moves from FCS to FBS in 2022, will play at the No. 5 seed oregon in a first-round game on Dec. 20 (7:30 p.m. ET, TNT/HBO Max).
Tulane is the No. 11 seed and will play at No. 6 ole miss in the first round on December 20 (3:30 p.m. ET, TNT/HBO Max). The Rebels defeated the visiting Green Wave 45–10 on September 20 at Vought–Hemingway Stadium. Ole Miss will play Tulane this time without coach Lane Kiffin, who departed. LSUHe was replaced by former defensive coordinator Pete Golding,
The Ducks (21.5 points) and Rebels (16.5 points) opened as heavy favorites to win their first-round games via DraftKings.
The inclusion of Alabama as the fifth SEC team is sure to spark heated debate after the Crimson Tide’s flop in the SEC Championship Game. Georgia held Alabama to minus-3 rushing yards and 209 yards of offense in a 28–7 victory, but the Tide remained No. 9 in the CFP rankings.
The Crimson Tide will play a first-round game at the No. 8 seed. oklahoma on Dec. 19 (8 p.m. ET, ESPN/ABC). The Sooners started as 1.5-point favorites at DraftKings, but the line quickly moved to Alabama’s favor by 1.5 points.
Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer and SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey argued that the Tide should not have been penalized for losing in the SEC Championship Game, while the other teams in question sat at home Saturday.
“This might be the best team in the country right now,” Sankey said of Georgia. “And you have to remember, Alabama went to Athens, won a game, won several other ranked games, played a tough schedule. That’s the reward tonight. It’s not a penalty for playing in that game.”
Notre Dame lost its first two games against Miami and Texas A&M by a combined four points. The Irish then won their next 10 games by an average of 29.7 points, but it was not enough to propel them ahead of Alabama or Miami for an at-large berth in the finals.
According to ESPN Analytics, the Tide had the eighth-best strength of record in FBS and the 11th-best strength of schedule, with wins over four teams (Georgia, Vanderbilt, missouri And Tennessee) when Alabama played them. The Tide snapped Georgia’s 33-game home winning streak with a 24–21 victory on September 27.
However, Alabama also suffered its worst loss among the teams under consideration by the selection committee – a surprising 31–17 loss. Florida State In its opener. The Seminoles finished 5–7.
“Their strength of schedule was the most in the top 11,” Yurachek said. “We felt like despite their performance yesterday in the conference championship game, they deserved to finish in ninth place.”
with ruler Worried Virginia In overtime in Saturday’s ACC Championship Game, the selection committee opted to take the two Group of Five champions — Tulane and James Madison — over the Blue Devils (8-5).
“Lost behind the computer algorithms and ‘playoff predictors’ that obscure human decision making are these two basic questions: Will a team that went undefeated in the Sun Belt, in which there were only four teams with winning records, win seven games in the ACC? Will a team that won seven games in the ACC, in which 11 teams had winning records (we played seven) go undefeated in the Sun Belt?” Duke coach Manny Diaz told ESPN on Sunday.
“We are aware of our failings that leave us at the mercy of the committee, but anyone who actually watches and studies football knows the real answer to the above two questions.”
Yurachek said Sunday that leaving the reigning ACC champion out of the field will have no impact on Miami’s inclusion as an at-large team.
,[That] There was absolutely no impact,” Yurachek said. “Our job as a selection committee is to rank the top 25 teams, and then you remove the five supreme conference champions and the seven at-large teams, and that’s what we did to fill out the bracket. Miami ended up being one of the seventh-highest teams, and that’s why they’re in the playoffs.”
The quarter-finals and semi-finals will be played in the traditional New Year’s Six bowl games.
Ohio State will play the Miami-Texas A&M winner in the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Eve (7:30 p.m., ESPN). The New Year’s Day lineup will include Texas Tech vs. JMU-Oregon winner in the Orange Bowl (noon ET, ESPN), Indiana vs. Alabama-Oklahoma winner in the Rose Bowl (4 p.m. ET, ESPN) and Georgia vs. Tulane-Ole Miss winner in the Sugar Bowl (8 p.m. ET, ESPN).
The Fiesta Bowl (January 8, 7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) and the Peach Bowl (January 9, 7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) will host the semifinal games.
A national champion will be crowned on Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).
The bowl season begins on December 13 at noon with the Cricket Celebration Bowl at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
In addition to the 11 CFP games, a total of 36 bowl games are scheduled, and 42 of those games will air on the ESPN/ABC Family of networks.
ESPN’s Andrea Adelson contributed to this report.
