{"id":867097,"date":"2025-08-22T21:12:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T02:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/22\/2025-preseason-college-football-playoff-predictions\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T21:12:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T02:12:03","slug":"2025-preseason-college-football-playoff-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/22\/2025-preseason-college-football-playoff-predictions\/","title":{"rendered":"2025 preseason College Football Playoff predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Football <\/p>\n<div data-video=\"watch,640,360,46028126\" data-cerebro-id=\"68a5b85c4e67754ba9cc1ce8\" data-title=\"Which CFP contender will absolutely not win it all?\" data-source=\"espn\" data-contributing-partner=\"wsc\"><figcaption>\n<div>\n<p><span>Which CFP contender will absolutely not win it all? (1:27)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Paul Finebaum details why he would bury Ohio State&#8217;s and Penn State&#8217;s chances as CFP title contenders. (1:27)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=\/i\/columnists\/espn_generic_m.jpg&#038;h=80&#038;w=80&#038;scale=crop\" alt width=\"40\" height=\"40\"><\/p>\n<p>ESPN staff<span>Aug 22, 2025, 07:00 AM ET<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>It&#8217;s August and no games have been played, but that&#8217;s not keeping ESPN&#8217;s college football reporters from predicting the 12 schools that will make up the College Football Playoff beginning in December.<\/p>\n<p>Ohio State won the inaugural 12-team bracket last season, despite starting as the No. 8 seed, demonstrating that the playoff truly gives new life to any team that gains entry.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a slight alteration to the format this year. The tournament will still comprise the top five conference champions and seven at-large schools. But the top four seeds &#8212; and the first-round bye that comes with each of those seeds &#8212; will no longer go to the four highest-ranked conference champions (last season that was Oregon, Georgia, Boise State and Arizona State). This season the committee has moved to a straight seeding model, so the four highest-ranked schools in the committee&#8217;s final top 12 will get the top four seeds.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of Week 0, here are the slates our reporters picked. Let the chase begin:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Andrea Adelson:<\/strong> 1. Clemson 2. Penn State 3. Texas 4. LSU 5. Georgia 6. Ohio State 7. Notre Dame 8. Miami 9. Alabama 10. Iowa State 11. Nebraska 12. Boise State<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kyle Bonagura:<\/strong> 1. Texas 2. Penn State 3. Ohio State 4. Clemson 5. Georgia 6. Notre Dame 7. Alabama 8. Oregon 9. LSU 10. Arizona State 11. Miami 12. Boise State<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Connelly:<\/strong> 1. Penn State 2. Alabama 3. Texas 4. Ohio State 5. Georgia 6. Notre Dame 7. Texas A&#038;M 8. Clemson 9. Oregon 10. Boise State 11. Miami 12. Kansas State<\/p>\n<p><strong>Heather Dinich:<\/strong> 1. Penn State, 2. Clemson, 3. Texas 4. LSU 5. Georgia 6. Ohio State 7. Notre Dame 8. Alabama 9. Miami 10. Oregon 11. Kansas State 12. Boise State<\/p>\n<p><strong>David Hale:<\/strong> 1. Ohio State 2. Texas 3. Clemson 4. Penn State 5. Notre Dame 6. Georgia 7. Oregon 8. LSU 9. Texas A&#038;M 10. Kansas State 11. Miami 12. Toledo<\/p>\n<p><strong>Eli Lederman:<\/strong> 1. Penn State 2. Texas 3. Clemson 4. Ohio State 5. Notre Dame 6. Alabama 7. Oregon 8. Georgia 9. Arizona State 10. LSU 11. Miami 12. Boise State<\/p>\n<p><strong>Max Olson:<\/strong> 1. Texas. 2. Penn State. 3. Notre Dame. 4. Clemson. 5. Alabama. 6. Oregon. 7. Georgia. 8. Ohio State. 9. Texas Tech. 10. LSU. 11. Utah. 12. Boise State<\/p>\n<p><strong>Adam Rittenberg:<\/strong> 1. Texas 2. Penn State 3. Clemson 4. Georgia 5. Alabama 6. Ohio State 7. Notre Dame 8. Oregon 9. Miami 10. Iowa State 11. Boise State 12. Illinois<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mark Schlabach:<\/strong> 1. Texas 2. Clemson 3. Penn State 4. Georgia 5. Ohio State 6. Alabama 7. Notre Dame 8. Oregon 9. Miami 10. LSU 11. Arizona State 12. Boise State<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jake Trotter:<\/strong> 1. Texas, 2. Clemson, 3. Penn State, 4. LSU, 5. Ohio State, 6. Notre Dame, 7. Georgia, 8. Oregon, 9. Illinois, 10. South Carolina, 11. Texas Tech, 12. Tulane<\/p>\n<p><strong>Paolo Uggetti:<\/strong> 1. Ohio State, 2. Georgia, 3. Texas 4. Penn State 5. Notre Dame 6. Clemson 7. Oregon 8. LSU 9. Arizona State 10. Miami 11. South Carolina 12. Boise State<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave Wilson:<\/strong> 1. Texas 2. Penn State 3. Clemson 4. Ohio State 5. Georgia 6. Notre Dame 7. Alabama 8. Oregon 9. LSU 10. Arizona State 11. Miami 12. Boise State<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/story\/_\/page\/playoffpredictions082225\/college-football-playoff-predictions-2025-preseason\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a> ESPN Staff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Which CFP contender will absolutely not win it all? (1:27) Paul Finebaum details why he would bury Ohio State&#8217;s and Penn State&#8217;s chances as CFP title contenders. (1:27) ESPN staffAug 22, 2025, 07:00 AM ET It&#8217;s August and no games have been played, but that&#8217;s not keeping ESPN&#8217;s college football reporters from predicting the 12<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":867098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1850,3790,41152],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-867097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-college","category-football","category-preseason"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}