New College Football Playoff Forecast Signals Trouble for Big 12 Conference

The Colorado Buffaloes have struggled out of the gates in the 2025 season. Deion Sanders and company are 1-2 with losses to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and Houston Cougars. They are on the outside looking in on the latest College Football Playoff predictions.

Is there still a path for the Buffaloes to get back in the mix along with other Big 12 teams? It looks to be a one-bid league at this moment.

ESPN Reveals Updated Playoff Predictions

College Football Playoff Prediction Updated Big 12 Colorado Buffaloes Deion Sanders Iowa State Cyclones Arizona State Sun Dev — Iowa State football head coach Matt Campbell speaks during Iowa State football media day at Stark Performance Center on July 25, 2025, in Ames. | Lily Smith/The Register / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

ESPN’s Heather Dinich revealed her updated playoff predictions heading into week four of the college football season. Dinich breaks down each conference with their current playoff teams in her projections.

SEC: Georgia Bulldogs, LSU Tigers, Oklahoma Sooners, Tennessee Volunteers, Texas A&M Aggies

Big Ten: Ohio State Buckeyes, Oregon Ducks, Penn State Nittany Lions

ACC: Florida State Seminoles, Miami Hurricanes

Big 12: Iowa State Cyclones

Group of Five: South Florida Bulls

Dinich has the Big 12 getting just one team in the 12-team playoff, which for now is Iowa State. Last season, the Big 12 also got just one team in; the Arizona State Sun Devils.

“Just one Big 12 team is getting into the College Football Playoff right now,” Dinich said. “That could be the case by the season’s end too.”

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Colorado's Playoff Hopes Slim

It will be an uphill battle for Colorado to not only make the College Football playoff, but to even just compete for a spot heading into the last half of the season. Colorado has lost to both power conference teams they have played so far; Georgia Tech and Houston.

If there wasn’t an automatic bid, the Buffaloes would be nearly eliminated already with their 1-2 record. However, with a 12-team playoff and the top five ranked conference champions receiving automatic bids, there is still a chance.

Conference play has not gotten underway for most of the teams in the Big 12. Only four out of the 16 teams have played a conference game. Unfortunately for Colorado, they are one of the two teams that have a conference loss. They will have to be near perfect in their remaining nine games if they want any chance to challenge for a spot in the Big 12 championship game.

The Big 12 was chaos last season and Colorado would need some of that again in 2025. Every team in the conference had at least two Big 12 losses, resulting in a four-way tie for the two spots in the Big 12 championship. They went to Iowa State and Arizona State.

Getting an at-large bid into the playoff seems unlikely now for the Buffaloes. They will probably have to get in through the automatic qualifier. A team that took advantage of this last season were the Clemson Tigers in the ACC. Clemson had three losses and would not have made the playoff, but they ended up winning the ACC title to receive there automatic bid into the playoff.