College Football Playoff Bracket 2025 - Championship Odds & Predictions

2025-26 College Football Playoff Bracket

                 Championship Game
                 January 20, 2026
                  Miami Gardens
                  |
          ---------------------------------
          |                               |
       Semifinal                      Semifinal
        Jan 9                          Jan 10
     Fiesta Bowl                    Peach Bowl
          |                               |
     -----------                     -----------
     |         |                     |         |
   Quarter  Quarter                Quarter  Quarter
    Jan 1    Jan 1                  Jan 1    Jan 2
   Cotton   Orange                  Rose     Sugar
     |        |                      |         |
   -----    -----                  -----     -----
   |   |    |   |                  |   |     |   |
   5  12    8   9                  6  11     7  10
      vs      vs                     vs        vs
      #4      #1                     #3        #2
    (Bye)   (Bye)                  (Bye)     (Bye)

First Round: Dec 19-20 (Campus Sites)
#5 @ #12 | #8 @ #9 | #6 @ #11 | #7 @ #10

The 2025/26 college football season got underway on Saturday, August 23rd, when Iowa State defeated Kansas State by three points in the coveted Aer Lingus Classic in Dublin. The regular season runs through December 7th, with the playoffs commencing 12 days later on December 19th.

The first round will be played on Campus sites, as the teams ranked between 5th and 12th compete for a place in the last eight. Each of the winners will then play one of the top four seeds, who receive a bye into the quarterfinals. The semifinals are scheduled for January 9th and 10th, with the victors progressing to the Championship game at Miami Gardens on January 20th.

Above, you'll find our at-a-glance college football playoff bracket, which can help you to visualize potential routes to the showpiece match. The first 2025-26 College Football Playoff rankings won't be released until Tuesday, November 4, 2025. This data will subsequently be updated weekly, before the final playoff rankings are revealed ahead of Selection Day on Sunday, December 7th.

Key Finding: The current odds imply a 75.6% probability of Texas reaching the 2025 Playoffs and 13.3% chance of winning the Championship. The Longhorns top the preseason rankings after their 7-1 SEC record last season and narrow CFP semifinal loss.

If you intend to place an outright bet at the current college football championship odds, you may want to consider backing more than one playoff contender. You can focus on short-priced teams that have a high probability of qualifying for the cfb playoff bracket, before combining these in a parlay that increases your potential returns.

You can also use our parlay calculator to calculate your potential return and implied probability values. For example, you can back Texas, Penn and Ohio at combined odds of +133, implying a 42.9% chance of success. A successful $10 stake will deliver a total payout of $23.32 and profit of $13.32. Just remember that each team will have to qualify for the bet to come in.

How the 12-Team College Football Playoff Works

Before you compare the current college football playoff odds, it's important to understand how the 12-team structure works. We'll break this down in more detail below, analyzing the distribution of auto-bids and criteria used to determine other competitors.

Automatic Qualifiers

The College Football Playoff automatically includes the 5 highest-ranked conference champions. These five champions receive auto-bids and typically include the winners of the so-called Power Four conferences: namely the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC.

A further automatic bid is awarded to next-best performing champion, who may represent one of the Group of Six conferences. These conferences include the American, C-USA, MAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt and Pac12. The latter has been incorporated to the previous Group of Five, having been expanded to include teams like Boise State, San Diego, Colorado and Utah.

The 2025 season has introduced new rules too, which mean that the four highest-ranked teams overall will receive first-round byes. Previously, byes were automatically awarded to the best-performing college champions, regardless of their holistic ranking. Below, you'll find a summary of last season's auto-bid winners and their final regular season ranking.

At-Large Selection

The remaining seven spots in the college football playoff bracket are awarded to the highest ranked teams, regardless of which conference they play in. To determine their rankings, the selection committee considers various weighted criteria, including the following:

College Football Championship Odds 2025

Before you make any cfb playoff predictions for 2025/26, it's important to analyze the current Championship odds. This is a key indicator of team strength and form, while the cfb championship odds also reveal the implied probability of each potential outcome. You can also use our Implied Probability Calculator to convert sportsbook odds into probability percentages. 
So, let's take a closer look at the early betting favorites and the most appealing value picks.

Current Championship Favorites

A Southeastern Conference team has now claimed the number one preseason ranking for the fifth consecutive campaign, with the Longhorns achieving this objective ahead of 2025/26. They're also the early betting favorites with FanDuel and BetMGM, with the latter's odds implying a 13.3% probability of National Championship success.

NCAAF championship odds of +650 on a Texas victory certainly offer fair value, although they're likely to drift in the coming weeks. The Longhorns certainly boast one of the strongest rosters and defensive lines in college football, while the installation of Arch Manning as the team's starting quarterback will strengthen their running game and create a more versatile attack.

The Longhorns will face the Buckeyes on the road in their 2025/26 season opener, before travelling to Florida and Georgia in October and November respectively. Interestingly, the Buckeyes have seen their own college football national championship odds drift in recent weeks, after losing a raft of talent via the NFL draft.

Because of this, Big 10 rivals Penn State arguably offer superior value as both Conference and Championship winners, notwithstanding their losing head-to-record against Ohio (14–25). The Nittany Lions have also retained much of their roster for 2025/26 (aside from quarterback Abdul Carter), and their Championship odds of +700 with FanDuel imply a 12.5% probability of success.

Value Bets & Long Shots

Using the current odds to win the college football championship, we're going to assess the best value outright picks.

Using our Dutching calculator, you can distribute your bankroll effectively across all three outcomes to guarantee a nominal profit. In this case, a $100 stake will deliver a guaranteed $307.69 return and $207.69 profit if one of your three picks wins.

College Football Playoff Predictions

The first official playoff rankings for 2025/26 won't be published until November 4th, while Selection Day is scheduled for December 7th. The official college football playoff bracket won't be finalized until this date. However, it's possible to create a projected college football playoff bracket, based on current odds, probability and last season's performances.

CFB Playoff Bracket Predictions

Each of the teams ranked in the preseason top eight have a better than 61.5% chance of reaching the 2025/26 playoffs. These include defending champions Ohio and their Big 10 rivals Penn State, who both have a 76.20% of qualifying for this season's cfb playoff bracket.

The Longhorns and the Bulldogs have a 75.6% and 70.6% probability of reaching the playoffs respectively, as both went 11-2 in 2024 and Texas produced an average winning margin of 21.5 points last season. The Clemson Tigers have a 67.2% chance of reaching the playoffs for a second consecutive year. They'll benefit from playing in the less competitive ACC Conference, in which they compiled a 7-1 record in 2024 before winning the Conference game 34-31 against SMU.

Our college football playoff picks also include the hugely impressive Oregon and Notre Dame. The former produced a flawless 9-0 record in the last season's Big 10, while their average winning margin was 15.8 points. Notre Dame went 11-1 en route to the CFP National Championship final, producing an average points difference of +20.6 per game.

Outside of the top 12 preseason teams, the Michigan Wolverines are one to watch in 2025/26. They went 8-5 in 2024 and won the ReliaQuest Bowl, impressively defeating Alabama 19-13. They're priced at +205 to make the playoffs and have a 32.8% probability of achieving this objective. Boise State won 12 of their 14 matches through 2024, going 7-0 in the MWC before reaching the CFP quarterfinal. They have a 36.2% chance of qualifying for this season's playoffs too.

Our Expert Playoff Picks

We've summarized our early cfb playoff bracket predictions below. These include the sides who we think have the best chance of qualifying for a bye into the quarterfinals. Remember, byes will now be awarded to the four highest ranked teams regardless of their conference affiliation. Independent teams like Notre Dame are once again able to receive a bye into the quarterfinals.

College Football Playoff Bracket Challenge

There's no current cfb playoff bracket, as we wait for the regular season to play out and the final rankings to be determined. However, you can still potentially project the college football playoff bracket for 2025/26, based on your analysis of odds, each team's strength of schedule and past performances.

Being able to project outcomes also enables you to compete in the exciting College Football Playoff Bracket Challenge for the new season. This requires you to pick your winners in each playoff round, with points awarded for every accurate prediction that you make.

How to Fill Out Your Bracket

When plotting and organizing your college football playoff picks, your choice of strategy will depend on your desired returns and appetite for risk. There are several ways in which you can fill out your bracket:

Printable Bracket

When the college football playoff bracket 2025/26 is finally determined, you can begin to visualize each team's route to the final and pick individual winners. Our own college football playoff bracket is printable too, making it easier to track results, odds changes and identify the best value wagers.

College Football Playoff History & Trends

As we've touched on, relying too heavily on historical data when appraising the latest college football playoff odds is fraught with risk. However, there are some trends and insights that are highly informative, from historic Championship winners, their rankings and playoff performances.

Past Champions & Odds

If we look at the last five National Championships, we can see that three were won by the top playoff seed. Georgia bucked this trend back in 2021, when they entered the playoffs as the third seed before upsetting the top ranked Alabama in the final.

Ohio State entered the 12-team cfb playoff bracket in 2024 seeded 8th. However, defeated the number one seed Oregon 41-21 at the Rose Bowl in the quarterfinals, before overcoming fifth-ranked Texas and seventh-ranked Notre Dame to capture the National Championships.

Worryingly for the Texas Longhorns, none of the previous five National champions have been ranked number one in preseason. In fact, only USC (2004) and Alabama (2017) have triumphed having been ranked number one in preseason by the Associated Press. This may discourage some from backing Texas to win outright in 2025/26.

Key Finding: Only 2 of the last 5 champions were preseason #1 in the playoff rankings, with Ohio State winning as the #8 seed in 2024, demonstrating that playoff seeding doesn't guarantee championship success.

Betting Trends

Making successful NCAAF playoff predictions is clearly challenging, whether you want to pick the outright Championship winner or the outcome of individual postseason games. To help inform specific college football playoff picks, here are some historic trends to keep in mind:

College Football Playoff Betting Strategies

When betting on your cfb playoff predictions, there are several strategies that you can deploy. These include the aforementioned dutching, which allows you to strategically distribute your bankroll between two or more potential outright winners. Here are some additional strategies, which can be placed both pre-game and in-play but after the playoffs have started:

📈 Hedging Championship Futures

As an alternative to dutching, you can also hedge your Championship futures. For example, let's say that you've backed the Texas Longhorns outright, who have odds of +650 to win the college football National Championship. You've backed them to prevail with a $100 stake, and they're scheduled to face the Oregon Ducks in the final.

The Longhorns are the moneyline favorites ahead of the match, while you can get on the Ducks at +180. In this case, you can choose to hedge your outright wager with a bet on Oregon, with our hedging calculator suggesting an optimal stake of $232.14.

This creates a total outlay of $332.14. If the Longhorns and your original bet comes in, you stand to win $650 and lose your $232.14 hedge stake. However, if Oregon prevails in the final, you'll bank a slightly lower return of $417.86, minus your initial $100 bet. Regardless, you're guaranteed to bank at least $317.86 in profit through this strategy.

Live Betting the Playoff

Regardless of how the college football playoff bracket 2025-26 plays out in relation to your picks, you can look to maximize profits through live betting. This can include hedging pre-game selections in-play or simply reacting to events in real-time and capitalizing on natural breaks in the action (such as half-time).

College Football Playoff Schedule 2025-26

Making successful cfb playoff bracket predictions certainly requires knowledge of the scheduled ranking releases in 2025/26. There are six ranking updates scheduled during the season, including the initial release on November 4th and Selection Day on December 7th. Each of these events and the subsequent CFP rounds will directly impact the betting volumes and related odds.

Important Dates

Where to Bet on College Football Playoffs

Your access to outright prices and odds to make the college football playoff matches varies from one state to another. FanDuel is currently active in 21 states that allow playoff wagering, although some restrictions may apply in terms of online and mobile betting.

BetMGM operates in 20 US states that accept playoff wagers at the time of writing. These sites offer the most competitive cfb championship odds, but where exactly are they available?

Legal Betting States

Key Finding: FanDuel operates in 21 states while BetMGM covers 20 states for college football playoff betting. Note that some states restrict certain features to online-only betting, particularly for FanDuel in Kentucky, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wyoming.