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Mike's college football power rankings for teams in the 2025 College Football Playoff. His complete power rankings, including Ohio State, Oregon, Indiana, and more.
Power Rankings of the 2025 College Football Playoff Teams
The 12-team College Football Playoff field for the 2025 season is set. As expected, it was not without controversy, but what do you expect? When you have six current athletic directors on a 13-person committee, there are agendas at play, especially with millions of dollars for the conferences that get teams in. That’s a discussion for another day, and one that needs to be had if anyone is to ever take this sport seriously again.
That’s not why we’re here. We’re here to celebrate those 12 teams that got into the most exclusive club in college football. Some had to sweat the selection process. Some had to go win the conference and hope for chaos. Guess what? They got it. The ACC botched it up so badly that they actually got what they wanted in the end. Miami is in, Virginia is out, and the four power conglomerates are all mad at the little guys for taking a spot from teams that already had two mulligans. Cry me a river. Losses used to really count. There was an urgency when you got to one loss on the season that just isn’t there anymore…unless you’re not in the chosen two conferences.
12. James Madison (12-1)
I know that some people are going to be really mad about this, but there is a good chance that James Madison would have beaten Louisville without all of the quarterback shuffling — sometimes during the same drive — in that game. The James Madison offense took off when Bob Chesney stuck with Alonza Barnett III full-time. There is a high probability that James Madison beats Louisville without all of the shuffling in that game. That win would be better than Tulane’s win over Duke or Northwestern.
Many are discussing James Madison’s strength of schedule. I get it, but that isn’t a perfect argument. James Madison has tried to schedule more Power 4 teams. Many won’t even take their call. The ones that do demand a two-for-one (two away games for JMU to one return trip from the other school). The issue with that is that many power teams make the small school travel twice, then buy out the third leg of it, so they don’t have to go play on the road. That creates a big problem for the small school. That school never gets eight home games like power schools do. They need at least six home games to even think about breaking even. If they schedule multiple P4 teams, they often have to go on the road to do it. It’s more practical for a school like James Madison to get similar schools to do a one-for-one, as it benefits both teams.
11. Tulane (11-2)
I can make a strong case for James Madison at 11, but I chose the fact that Tulane won arguably the fourth-best conference in college football this year. The top of the American was better overall than the top of the ACC, and you can’t for a minute tell me that Syracuse without Steve Angeli is any better than Charlotte. The bottom of both conferences is awful.
Tulane benefited from having both Duke and Northwestern come to New Orleans for a game. The issue is that we’ve seen what Ole Miss did to Tulane in Oxford back in September. Is Lane Kiffin a good coach? Sure. He may not be a good human, but he can coach. Is he the only reason for the team’s success? Not a chance. I do think that Tulane will look better in this game since Jake Retzlaff was a late arrival in New Orleans. He was still getting used to the Tulane offense at that point. What are the chances that he misses on his first nine pass attempts again?
10. Alabama (10-3)
I have a lot of issues with Alabama’s inclusion in the playoff. First and foremost is getting smashed in the Conference Championship Game. Yeah, they beat Georgia earlier in the season, but Alabama has played terrible football in the second half of the season. They needed a big comeback to beat 4-8 South Carolina at home. They lost at home to Oklahoma despite outgaining the Sooners by more than 200 yards. They blew a big lead against 5-7 Auburn before that last drive that so thrilled the committee that they were compelled to let them in. We confirmed that Alabama wasn’t the same team as in the first half of the season when Georgia — who was 1-7 against Alabama under Kirby Smart with two losses at home — ran them over in Atlanta.
No part of me is a Notre Dame fan, and I really hate the backroom deal they have with the CFP committee. No one should get preferential treatment. Notre Dame has earned spots in both the BCS and CFP playoffs without being promised anything. To bring that into play now is wholly disingenuous. All that being said. Notre Dame deserved to be in this season, and it wasn’t because two Group of 5 teams got in. It’s because the committee chose to ignore the result of this conference championship game, but not the Big 12 one.
9. Oregon (11-1)
Oregon has no big wins outside of the conference and only one good win in it (USC). The bottom of the Big Ten would give the bottom of the ACC a run for who is worse, and the middle of this conference is consistently the worst middle of any Power 4 conference. No one talks about that. We just assume that the Big Ten is good because there are two really good teams in this conference who just gave us an epic title game. Oregon is near that top, but there is a significant drop-off from Oregon to the next tier of USC, Michigan, Iowa, Washington, and Illinois. Only five of Oregon’s 11 FBS foes had a winning record.
8. Miami (FL) (10-2)
People look at the Louisville loss as a bad loss, but what no one mentions is that Isaac Brown missed Louisville’s last four games. By the last game of the season, Louisville was down to its fourth-string running back and was missing projected first-round receiver Chris Bell from the offense. The Louisville team that finished the season is not the one that offed Miami. The loss in Dallas is to an SMU team that is obviously flawed, but it went to overtime. Acting like these losses are worse than Alabama’s loss to Florida State or the Texas loss to Florida is just gaslighting.
Ultimately, the dumb ACC tiebreakers ended up getting the conference what it wanted without Miami even having to play an extra game. The ACC always wanted Miami in instead of Virginia, and they have enough pull in the CFP committee room to get it done. I firmly believe that if Virginia had won the ACC, Miami wouldn’t be in. The committee just couldn’t stomach the fact that a Power 4 conference was boxed out. I advocated for Miami over Notre Dame because head-to-head needs to mean something. Both should have been in over Alabama.
7. Texas A&M (11-1)
We know that the Aggies were good when they went to Notre Dame and got a win on a botched extra point. Then they played the entire bottom half of the SEC except for Kentucky. The conference schedule for the Aggies was an absolute joke for a conference that claims to be the best from top to bottom. The only conference teams that the Aggies played in eight games with .500 or better records were LSU and Texas. They are propped up by a win in South Bend and an awful conference schedule.
6. Oklahoma (10-2)
Say what you will about the Oklahoma-Texas game, but the Sooners earned their spot. Wins against Tennessee and Alabama on the road are strong wins. Illinois State, their FCS opponent, just ended North Dakota State’s reign of terror in FCS. Michigan and Missouri are solid wins. The offense is nowhere near championship caliber, but this defense is in the top three Sooners units since 1990. If this Oklahoma offense can look like it did earlier in the season, this team can cause some trouble.
5. Mississippi (11-1)
There is no way this team is 11-1 under Austin Simmons. Trinidad Chambliss taking over this team saved the season for the Rebels. Kewan Lacy is among the top five running backs in the country. Mississippi didn’t suffer that one loss to a bad team that would keep them out of the CFP this year. They got a signature road win in Norman, and the only loss was in Athens. The issue with Mississippi is much the same as with A&M. They played 2-10 Arkansas, 4-8 South Carolina, 5-7 Mississippi State, and 4-8 Florida in the conference while dodging Alabama, Vanderbilt, Texas, and Texas A&M.
4. Georgia (12-1)
I know that you don’t want to hear this, but Georgia has holes. This team is good enough to blow out Texas and Alabama, but struggled with Florida and Georgia Tech. Would I be shocked if this Georgia team won a national championship? No. They have proven enough this season to be considered one of the contenders. Have they looked unequivocally better than the other three teams who should be in the four-team playoff? No.
3. Texas Tech (11-1)
Tech’s only loss was at Arizona State without their starting quarterback. This team beat BYU twice and Utah by a combined 83 points. The non-conference schedule was a joke, but the only time Tech struggled was without its starting quarterback. They won each of their 11 wins by at least 22 points. That’s domination.
2. Ohio State (12-1)
If the Big Ten Championship game was indeed the best of the best, this ranking makes sense. Both Indiana and Ohio State are more tested than Texas Tech. I believe that Tech can hang with both of them, but the truth is, we won’t know for a while. Tech gets one of the dreaded byes heading into the CFP. The four teams look much stronger than last year’s four that got byes. If all four lose this year, it’s something worth looking into.
1. Indiana (13-0)
What Curt Cignetti has done at Indiana is great for the sport and horrible for every coach who finishes with a winning record every year. If Cignetti can turn the program with the most losses in college football history around, it can happen anywhere. That means fans from everywhere expect their school to go make a hire like that. Cignetti has been so good at Indiana that the Hoosiers could relinquish their claim to most losses as early as 2026. Northwestern is only three losses behind the Hoosiers.
How did he do it? Cignetti and his staff have proven to be elite evaluators of talent. They don’t have any five-star recruits yet were the only undefeated FBS team this season. Indiana may lose in the CFP. Even if they do, what Cignetti has done in two years may be the best coaching job in history. The scary part is that Fernando Mendoza still has a year of eligibility left. Should he decline it, his younger brother is set to take over. Indiana could be around for a while.
