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Itāll be interesting to see whether the committee lets 6-6 UTSA into the field. Thereās no rule against it. Lots of coaching news to catch up on, but first, welcome to brackets-and-bowls day.
Final Exams: Will Tide get bailed out after flunking?
Every single year, Selection Sunday means arguing about where either Alabama or Ohio State should rank. Every. Single. Year. Go back and look. This time, one of them is mostly obvious, at least.
Today, we know these 10 teams will be in:
- Indiana will be No. 1.Ā In football! American football!
- The other byes will go to Georgia, Ohio State and Texas Tech, in some order.
- Oregon, Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Oklahoma will host in the first round, unless thereās some random ranking surprise.
- Tulane will be No. 11, andĀ either 8-5 Duke or 12-1 JMUĀ will be No. 12.
That leaves just two spots.Ā Biggest question:Ā AfterĀ getting embarrassedĀ 28-7 by No. 3 Georgia in yesterdayās SEC championship,Ā does 10-3 Alabama fall from No. 9 to No. 11, letting both 10-2 Notre Dame and 10-2 Miami in?Ā Remember the committee only moved the Tide ahead of ND on Tuesday due to the strength (?) of a narrow win over 5-7 Auburn, so itās hard to describe their advantage as vast.
- The Irish deserve to re-jump Bama, safely making the field.Ā The committee has usually dropped conference-championship losers by a spot or two or three. The Tide looked particularly disqualifying, rushing for a humiliating minus-3 yards. Elsewhere this weekend, Notre Dameās 28-7 October win over Boise State became a win over a 9-4 conference champion.
- Here is your weekly reminder that Miami beat Notre Dame. It also beat Florida StateĀ ā¦ which beat Bama 31-17 in Week 1. The committee is supposed to view games against common opponents as tiebreakers, so if it ignores Miamiās edges over both the Irish and the Tide, the ACC had better riot. And yeah, one of Bamaās three losses was to 5-7 FSU. Unserious.
Itās time to resolve the season-long Miami-Notre Dame debate: Put āem both in, ideally with the Canes ahead.Ā For the second time in the 12-team era and the Kalen DeBoer era, the Tide deserve to be the first team out, unless youād rather have BYU or Vanderbilt there. Our Scott Dochterman and Austin Mock foresee JMU over Duke and Bama over Miami in theirĀ nearly identical bracket predictionsĀ (only difference: Buckeyes or Dawgs at No. 2?), but Iām guessing the committee gets it right, selecting Miami and JMU, and I suppose UGA will likely be No. 2.
Weāll see shortly after noon ET today what the committee does, and āThe Audibleā will beĀ live on YouTube with reactions.
But wait, thereās so much more. Bowl pairings have already started trickling in, with that entire calendar set to fill today.Ā Projections here, now including the XBox Bowl at the Dallas Cowboysā practice field in place of the Bahamas Bowl. Thatās not a joke.
Superlatives
Biggest Double Take, Maybe of the Entire Season:Ā Yesterdayās rundown starts in the FCS playoffs, where undefeated No. 1 seed North Dakota State, the 10-time national champ, suffered a fourth-quarter meltdown andĀ lost 29-28 at home to Missouri Valley neighbor Illinois State. The Bison had been receiving AP Top 25 votes and had beaten the Redbirds 14 times in a row, including 33-16 in October. Now, the likely Montana-Montana State semifinal would be for favored status in the title game.
- With South Dakota State falling 50-29 at Montana, FCS will have a non-Dakota State champ for just the third time since 2010 ā and the other two, JMU and Sam Houston, are in FBS now. (North Dakotaās still alive, having stunned No. 6 Mercer 47-0.)
- Outside the bracket, Prairie View won its second SWAC title since 1964, securing its first-ever bid to the Celebration Bowlās HBCU championship against South Carolina State.
Best Two-Year Turnaround in College Football History:Ā Gotta be Curt Cignettiās Indiana. This speedy overhaul wouldāve been virtually impossible before the portal era, but even within the portal era, it almost literally canāt ever be topped. The Hoosiers were 3-9 just 24 months ago, and they hadnāt beaten Ohio State since 1988. They entered this season as the losingest program in college football history, yet they are currently the only undefeated team in all of Division I, winning their first outright Big Ten title since World War II. As Stewart Mandel wrote inĀ his Final Thoughts wrapup, āSo much for Nick Sabanās prediction several years ago that NIL and the portal would help the rich get richer.ā
- Fernando Mendoza will likely win the Hoosiersā first Heisman, playing fellow front-runnier Julian Sayin evenly in a 13-10 game dominated by defensive lines, but getting the W, the big throw on a late third down andĀ the goofball postgame interview. Someone should let my personal choice, Diego Pavia, cut a promo too.
Most Frequent Argument of the Upcoming Offseason:Ā The highly lucrative SEC championship might have cost the SEC a Playoff bid. This happened to various conferences during the four-team era, and it was bound to happen to somebody in the 12-team era. Rejecting Bama might spell doom for conference title games, but worrying about that isnāt the committeeās job.
- As Seth Emerson writes: āAlabama is not in peril because playing an extra game caused it to have a bad day. Alabama is in peril because this extra game put on display a team that isnāt playing like itās worthy of a bid.ā
Best ROI:Ā As Chris Vannini put it: āAn unprecedented roster investment from the new most famous booster in college football, with others, to get to this moment: Texas Techās first Big 12 championship. A 34-7 win over BYU, another dominant performance. Itās Techās first real conference championship since 1976 in the now-defunct Southwest Conference.ā
Best Little Guy:Ā For the second time in four years, itās No. 20 Tulane. Following Willie Fritzās 2022 team that beat USC in the Cotton Bowl, the Green Wave have their second American championship, beating No. 24 North Texas and securing their first Playoff bid. Soon-to-be Florida head coach Jon Sumrall 34, Oklahoma State head coach Eric Morris 21. Sumrall called this Playoff shotĀ two years ago.
Funniest Conference, As Always:Ā The ACC might luck into the Canes making the Playoff despite having blocked them from Charlotte via unwieldy tiebreakers, and could even stumble into having two representatives, if the committee somehow picks the five-loss Blue Devils over a JMU thatās only had one multi-score loss, not three. Regardless, Manny Diaz winning the ACC (27-20 in OT over fellow overachiever Virginia) while the Miami that fired him in 2021 still never has? Classic ACC material.
Best Exit:Ā Boise State leaves the Mountain West with the title belt in hand. Seven MWC championships in the Broncosā 14 years there (after eight full/partial WAC titles in 10 years), and now off to the Pac-12. Staying behind is UNLV, which reached the last three conference championships ā and lost all three to the departing Broncos, most recently 38-21.
Best One-Year Turnaround:Ā FBS teams that won 10 games a year after losing 10 games: 2010 Miami (Ohio), 2014 Air Force, 2017 Fresno State, 2018 Georgia Southern, 2019 Navy, that Tulane team mentioned aboveĀ ā¦ and my 2025 Kennesaw State Owls, who did it in just Year 2, beating Jacksonville State 19-15 to win CUSA. Jerry Mack and Cignetti should split however many national coach-of-the-year awards there are these days.
- (One reason those turnaround teams were all recent: Schedule sizes meant few 10-win/loss seasons from the 1910s through the 1960s. Since 2006, everybody plays at least 12.)
Best MAC Championship:Ā The one won 23-13 by Western Michigan over Miami (Ohio). In a parity-clogged conference, the 9-4 Broncos had already been the closest thing to a standout.
Second-Biggest Bully Takedown, Behind North Dakota State:Ā In Division III, John Carroll knocked off 13-time national champ Mount Union 10-7 in double overtime. Did it all by himself, too.
Quick Snaps
š Hope you like bullet points. Catching up on FBS head-coaching news:
- Somehow,Ā Penn Stateās sprawling searchĀ wound up landing Matt Campbell, the 46-year-old Ohio native who turned down roughly a million jobs during hisĀ amazing decade at Iowa State. His ties to a Cyclones roster loaded with returning starters could somewhat mitigate Penn State having twiddled its thumbs through early signing day, I say with condolences to Ames. (Eight-year deal! Desperate hiring manager = leverage.)
- Iowa StateĀ hustled to replace Campbell, grabbing Jimmy Rogers, who went a solid 6-6 in his lone year at Washington State. He previously spent almost two decades in various roles at South Dakota State (about five hours from Ames), winning the FCS title in 2023 as the Jackrabbitsā head coach and in 2022 as their DC.
- Meanwhile, UConn has announcedĀ the hiring of Toledoās Jason Candle, 81-44 after replacing former Mount Union teammate Campbell as the Rocketsā head coach in 2015. I was confused for years by nobody grabbing Candle. (Also on those aforementioned Mount Union champs: Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni.)
- Texas A&M OC Collin Klein is indeed going home, becomingĀ the 36-year-old head coach at Kansas State, replacing the retired Chris Klieman. A you-are-old moment for those who remember Klein as 2012ās least-tabloided Heisman finalist, behind Johnny Manziel and Manti Teāo.
- Also going home isĀ Oregon DC Tosh Lupoi, back to Cal, where he was a lineman in the 2000s. Task one is already complete, as his Bears areĀ keeping top young QB Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele. Both of Dan Lanningās coordinators are leaving soon, with OC Will Stein taking over Kentucky.
- Two ways of looking atĀ JMU hiring fired Florida coach Billy Napier: Heās won in the Sun Belt before, inheriting a decent Louisiana situation and guiding it to 40-12. Or heās the opposite of previous hires Curt Cignetti and Bob Chesney, who each fixed multiple smaller programs before the Dukes came calling.
- UAB replaced Trent Dilfer by promoting interim Alex Mortensen,Ā son of the late NFL reporter Chris Mortensen. The former OC took over in October and immediately beat a 6-0 Memphis, ultimately going 2-4.
- MemphisĀ wants one-year Southern Miss head coach Charles HuffĀ to replace Ryan Silverfield, now at Arkansas. Huff, formerly Nick Sabanās associate head coach, went 32-20 at Marshall beforeĀ last Decemberās bizarre situationĀ that ended up with him leading just the Golden Eaglesā second winning season (7-5) in the last six years.
š° Elsewhere in news:
Mementos
One of the finest sentences Iāve ever read:
In D2 post-season action, the mighty Peacocks of Upper Iowa won the Albanese Candy Bowl, garnering them the coveted Leg Lamp Trophy! š¦
ā RedditCFB (@redditcfb.com) December 6, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Those of you who are bowl-eligible, may the Pop-Tarts be ever in your favor today. Those of you already on the couch, save a space for the rest of us. untilsaturday@theathletic.com if you wanna holler.