What college football's national title field looks like after CFP rankings reveal

Where things stand in the latest College Football Playoff bracket projection after the committee revealed its first top 25 rankings.

What the College Football Playoff would look like today. | USA Today Sports | IMAGN

For the first time this season, the College Football Playoff selection committee have revealed their official top 25 rankings, giving fans their initial preview of how the 2025 national championship race looks according to the people who will create it.

This season is a little different than last year, as the selectors moved away from the confusing ranking vs. seeding model, and instead embraced the simpler straight-seeding model.

The top four seeds are no longer given to the four highest-ranked conference champions, but simply to the four best teams as ranked by the committee.

What would college football’s national championship field look like today? Here’s the current 12-team field, according to the selectors’ first rankings.

College Football Playoff bracket

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The first-round byes

1. Ohio State. College football’s reigning national champion and current top defense is the favorite to run the table in the regular season and emerge as Big Ten champs. Provided, of course, they can get past the primary obstacle left in their conference

2. Indiana. The nation’s most dominant team on paper, ranking tops in FBS beating opponents by 31 points on average, the Hoosiers have passed every test, and the committee doesn’t seem too perturbed by what critics have called a poor strength of record.

3. Texas A&M. The last undefeated team in the SEC, the Aggies are playing their best football in a generation. Some have raised questions around the quality of their wins and some close games, but being perfect in the nation’s best conference outweighs those concerns.

4. Alabama. No team in college football has more wins against AP ranked opponents, as the Crimson Tide has defeated four of them, on a banner seven-game win streak since that Week 1 loss and well in position to contend for the SEC title.

The first-round games

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12 Memphis at
5 Georgia

Notably, the committee didn’t put any Group of Five teams in its initial rankings. If that were to be the case come Selection Sunday, the selectors would simply pick whatever team they think was the best for the final No. 12 seed. Right now, that’s Memphis.

Winner plays 4 Alabama

9 Oregon at
8 Texas Tech

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One of college football’s best offenses in the Ducks playing opposite one of the nation’s best defenses in the Red Raiders, in what would be a raucous atmosphere in Lubbock.

Winner plays 1 Ohio State

11 Virginia at
6 Ole Miss

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One of the key takeaways from the first ranking was the relative lack of confidence the selectors appear to have in the ACC, especially since the midseason collapse of Miami, with Virginia emerging as their top pick from that league, ranked just 11th, and up against it on the road against the surging Rebels.

Winner plays 3 Texas A&M

10 Notre Dame at
7 BYU

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The selectors are far more impressed with the Irish than the Miami team that beat them, placing them eight spots higher in the first rankings, and sending a signal that Notre Dame is a bona fide playoff contender provided it doesn’t lose again. BYU is the last undefeated Big 12 team, but faces a tough Texas Tech squad this weekend.

Winner plays 2 Indiana