There are 30 teams that can harbor legitimate hopes for the College Football Playoff after the first 12 weeks of the 2025 regular season.
Thanks to numerous unsettled conference races, there are more teams than usual that can dream about the playoff. Schools like East Carolina, Vanderbilt and Duke can think about the playoff, even if the path is fairly narrow.
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Here are the teams that are still alive for the national title ahead of the final two weeks of the regular season.
American
Navy (8-2 overall, 6-1 American)
Anyone with a chance to win the American has a chance to make the College Football Playoff. Navy would seemingly be in pole position after its 41-38 win over South Florida on Saturday. The Midshipmen are off in Week 13 before visiting Memphis on Thanksgiving.
A win over the Tigers wouldn’t necessarily guarantee the Midshipmen a spot in the American title game, however. Memphis didn’t play Tulane and East Carolina. And neither Tulane nor East Carolina played North Texas. This is a season to get deep into your tiebreaker knowledge in nearly every conference.
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ACC
Georgia Tech (9-1 overall, 6-1 ACC)
We’ll be blunt: The ACC would very much prefer if Duke did not win the league. The Blue Devils’ chances took a huge hit Saturday with a home loss to Virginia but they are still alive to make the title game with games against North Carolina and Wake Forest remaining. If Duke won the ACC title at 8-5, there’s a great chance that James Madison would end up ranked ahead of the Blue Devils by the committee if the Dukes won the Sun Belt.
Georgia Tech survived a scare from Boston College on Saturday and will play for the ACC title with a win over Pitt in Week 13. The Panthers got smoked by Notre Dame, but as coach Pat Narduzzi said, the Irish could put up 100 on the Panthers and all that would matter would be Pitt’s games against the Yellow Jackets and Miami.
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Our best guess for the ACC title game is a matchup between Georgia Tech and Virginia, since all the Cavaliers have left is a game at home against Virginia Tech.
Big Ten
Indiana (11-0, 8-0 Big Ten)
There’s no need to pretend that Indiana and Ohio State aren’t playoff locks at this point. The Hoosiers are off in Week 13 before playing Purdue in Week 14 and Ohio State has games against Rutgers and Michigan remaining. The Wolverines need to beat both Maryland and the Buckeyes for a shot at the playoff, and even if they do, they could still miss out on the Big Ten title game despite having a strong at-large case for the playoff.
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The Week 13 game of the week comes in Eugene as Oregon hosts USC. USC needs a win to have any hope of making the playoff, and while Oregon could still sneak in at 10-2, the Ducks would feel a lot better at 11-1. The Big Ten looks like a three-bid league this year, even if both Ohio State and Indiana get first-round byes.
Big 12
Texas Tech (10-1, 7-1 Big 12)
Is the Big 12 heading for a rematch between Texas Tech and BYU? Cincinnati still has a chance to throw a wrench in things in Week 13 when the Bearcats host BYU, but they could have taken all tiebreakers out of the equation with a win on Saturday. Instead, Cincy lost at home to Arizona.
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There’s a chance the Big 12 could have a five-way tie at 7-2 in the conference if the Bearcats beat the Cougars. That’s a mess. Bring on the mess.
Independents
The Fighting Irish have games remaining against Syracuse and Stanford. Those teams have a combined record of 6-14. Notre Dame will be favored heavily in each of those two games and should be in the playoff at 10-2.
Brent Venables and the Oklahoma Sooners are firmly in the CFP picture after Saturday’s win over Alabama. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
(Kevin C. Cox via Getty Images)SEC
Texas A&M (10-0, 7-0 SEC)
The SEC playoff picture somehow got more crowded on Saturday. Seven teams can claim to have playoff hopes but there are five teams with stronger cases than others.
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Texas A&M came back from a 30-3 halftime deficit in a 31-30 win over South Carolina. Assuming a win over Samford, the Aggies are in the playoff even if they lose to Texas in Week 14. Alabama is probably in with a win over Auburn in Week 14, and Georgia is probably in at 10-2 as well. Ole Miss is off in Week 13 before a game against Mississippi State. We can probably pencil the Rebels into the playoff too.
If the SEC gets five teams into the 12-team field, Oklahoma has a big leg up on Texas and Vanderbilt for that final spot. Even if the Sooners and Commodores finish at 10-2, Oklahoma will have a win over an Alabama team that beat Vanderbilt. The Commodores are rooting for both Missouri and LSU over the final two weeks against OU, and Texas probably needs chaos to get into the field after getting dominated by Georgia on Saturday night.
Here are this week’s winners and losers.
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Winners
Arizona: The Wildcats are on a three-game win streak after their 30-24 win over No. 25 Cincinnati. Arizona is now 7-3 overall and a sneaky candidate for a nine-win season with games remaining against Baylor and Arizona State. QB Noah Fifita was 23-of-31 passing for 294 yards and a TD as his 15-yard pass to Gio Richardson in the fourth quarter was the 68th TD pass of his career.
Entering the game, Fifita was tied with Nick Foles and Willie Tuitama for the most TD passes in school history.
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Oregon QB Dante Moore: The sophomore put up stellar numbers in No. 8 Oregon’s 42-13 win over Minnesota on Friday night. Moore was 27-of-30 passing for 306 yards and two touchdowns as he got to watch the final 11 minutes of the game from the sidelines after Oregon’s final TD of the night. Moore is now completing nearly 73% of his passes and has thrown 21 TDs to just five interceptions.
Missouri RB Ahmad Hardy: After a frustrating few weeks, Hardy ran wild over Mississippi State. The sophomore finished with 25 carries for 300 yards and three touchdowns in the Tigers’ 49-24 win.
Hardy had TD runs of 10 yards, 72 yards and 43 yards after totaling 316 yards over his last four games. Mizzou found incredible success with zone runs against the Bulldogs and Hardy showed why he’s one of the best running backs in the country. The Tigers are now 7-3 and head to Oklahoma in Week 13 in an attempt to play spoiler to the Sooners’ playoff hopes.
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Jacksonville State: The Gamecocks are the lone undefeated team in Conference USA play after their 35-26 win over Kennesaw State on Friday. JSU is 6-0 with games against FIU and Western Kentucky remaining. The Hilltoppers are 6-1 ahead of Kennesaw State and Missouri State at 5-1. JSU has won five straight games after losing to Southern Miss and has three one-score wins in that stretch.
Losers
Arkansas: The Razorbacks are now 2-8 overall after a 23-22 loss to LSU. The Tigers were the only team to score in the fourth quarter when Michael Van Buren — starting in place of Garrett Nussmeier — threw a 12-yard pass to Bauer Sharp with 7:53 to go.
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It’s been a lost season for Arkansas for a while. But it’s also been a season of close losses. Outside of Notre Dame’s 56-13 win at the end of September — the game that got Sam Pittman fired the next day — the only other multi-score game Arkansas has lost all season is a 33-24 defeat to Auburn. Nebraska has the record for most one-score losses in a season, with nine in 2021, but Arkansas could get to eight with close losses to Texas and Missouri over the final two weeks of the season.
Oklahoma State: The 14 points the Cowboys allowed on Saturday to Kansas State were the fewest points they’ve given up to an FBS team all season. That’s good news. The bad news is that the Cowboys only scored six points themselves in a 14-6 loss to fall to 1-9 overall and 0-7 in the Big 12. OSU had 373 yards of total offense but turned the ball over five times. The Cowboys got to the Kansas State 19-yard line with 1:23 to go, but a holding penalty pushed them back and they turned the ball over on downs.
OSU has games remaining against UCF and Iowa State to end the season. Will its 17-game Big 12 losing streak stretch to 19?
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Oregon State: The season can’t end soon enough for the Beavers. And the good news for Oregon State fans is there’s just one more game to go. Oregon State fell to 2-9 with a 31-14 road loss at Tulsa on Saturday. The loss to the Golden Hurricane came just a week after Oregon State fell 21-17 at home to previously winless Sam Houston. However, Oregon State can officially win the two-team Pac-12 with a victory over Washington State in the final week of the season. One of the Beavers’ two wins came in a 10-7 victory over the Cougars earlier this season.
North Carolina: Bill Belichick’s team needs to beat Duke and NC State over the final two weeks of the season to make a bowl. The Tar Heels lost 28-12 at Wake Forest on Saturday to fall to 4-6 overall. UNC had just 257 total yards and rushed for 56 yards on 24 carries in the loss as it failed to score a touchdown.