Throughout the Week 14 slate to wrap up the regular season, Sports Illustrated will give an updated look at the playoff seeding and matchups.
Update at 11 p.m. ET Saturday:
Rivalry week, how could there be any doubt about how bonkers you would get? The prime-time games did not lack for drama and there was a series of successive, wild endings within about a 45-minute span that reaffirmed just how great this sport is.
You could start with the Iron Bowl, which was anything but straightforward for Alabama as it clinched a berth in the SEC championship game with an incredible fourth-and-2 touchdown call. That should lock up the Tide in the playoff field regardless of the result in Atlanta. If they win, they naturally get an automatic berth and likely move high enough up as the SEC champs to host a CFP game in Tuscaloosa, Ala. If they lose their rematch to Georgia, it’s unlikely a 10–3 Alabama would get dropped from the bracket for playing an extra game and losing it to a team they already beat. It’s not an in/out scenario for that game, but bragging rights and the possibility to upend the entire bracket from a seeding perspective (and maybe determining who is the biggest threat for Ohio State this season).
You also cannot overlook the ACC chaos that was a foot Saturday night. To start with, Virginia locked up its trip to Charlotte with a routine win over Virginia Tech and then Duke, improbably, back-doored its way to the title game next weekend thanks to Cal’s last-minute upset of SMU.
The Blue Devils winning the ACC also presents a doomsday scenario for the conference. It’s not absurd to think an 8–5 conference champion could get leapfrogged by a 12–1 Sun Belt champion James Madison as that fifth-highest-ranked conference winner. If the Hoos triumph and cement a heck of a season under Tony Elliott, no harm and no foul. If not, however, it will be a very nervous Selection Sunday across the ACC.
College football conference title game schedule
Update at 4:30 p.m. ET Saturday:
The CFP bracket is holding steady after the noon slate on Saturday of Week 14 and so too is the bubble.
No. 11 BYU fell behind early at home to UCF but won going away to enter the Big 12 title game at 11–1. No. 12 Miami thumped No. 22 Pitt for its biggest road win to send another message to the committee, and No. 13 Utah and No. 16 Texas probably won’t be too broken up over No. 15 Michigan taking a loss to end its regular season.
With the final 3:30 p.m. ET slate already underway, all eyes are on No. 8 Oklahoma hosting LSU as one potential at-large bid getting either locked up or opened up, plus seeing what Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia can do at No. 19 Tennessee and the battle for the Pacific Northwest between one-loss No. 6 Oregon and Washington.
Things have been pretty straightforward beyond Texas A&M’s loss on Black Friday, but that doesn’t mean the playoff picture will wind up that way when the final Saturday games wrap up.
Update at 11:30 p.m. ET Friday:
Never, in the history of college football, does rivalry week go according to plan. Chalk just doesn’t happen as you expect it to no matter what the rankings next to the school names may lead you to believe. This year, especially, with so many potential College Football Playoff teams traveling on the road to in-state foes, you just knew there would be a few late twists that were bound to shake up the postseason picture.
On Friday night in Austin, we received our first major upset of the weekend as Texas continued to hold rival Texas A&M at arm’s length since the renewal of their annual series to deny the Aggies their first trip to Atlanta for the SEC championship game. Not only did it become the maroon and white’s first blemish of the season, but it salvaged a bit of one for the burnt orange in what has been a mostly lost 2025 since being named the preseason No. 1.
Setting aside the feelings being felt around the Lone Star State depending on where your loyalties reside, that end result was not the worst thing in the world. Texas A&M was assured of a CFP spot regardless of the outcome and now will get to host a playoff game at Kyle Field in the first round—likely against the Group of 5 team or ACC champion. The Aggies would probably draw a decent quarterfinal matchup, too, potentially against Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl. It will sting for the Aggies for another year, but the alternative could be worse.
It also allows for a full week of debate over the candidacy of Texas as an at-large team in the playoff—the ideal scenario if you’re conference commissioner Greg Sankey after over a year of stumping for an increased emphasis on strength of schedule. It’s still an uphill battle, but if any three-loss team is going to break the bracket seal, it’s this one.
Oh, and for good measure that final score sends Georgia to the SEC title game where the Bulldogs will face either a rematch against Alabama or … Lane Kiffin and Mississippi if the Tide lose the Iron Bowl on the Plains.
It may not be to script, but it is a delightful way to wrap up Black Friday.
Update at 7 a.m. ET Friday:
The best week in college football has arrived. Sit back, relax and eat up those Thanksgiving leftovers as we have two full slates of action Friday and Saturday featuring plenty of incredible rivalry games, nearly every conference title game berth up for grabs and the College Football Playoff entering make-or-break territory for several programs on the bubble. With chilly weather in parts of the country and other potential conditions on the field, it’s shaping up to be quite the memorable weekend in the sport as the regular season comes to a close.
Now, it’s not often that every result matters, but in Week 14, that is true. We could be down to conference winning percentage being decided by the final game of the final full Saturday of the season depending on how things go and there are a number of other scenarios that could play out which will have an eventual impact on the CFP race. Throw in a host of home underdogs and tons of coaching staffs (and players) thinking about their next move and this could be a weekend full of fireworks as much as it could be full of chalk.
Here’s how the bracket looks going into what should be an eventful holiday weekend in the sport from coast to coast.
Live Week 14 College Football Playoff Bracket
- Ohio State
- Indiana
- Georgia
- Texas Tech
- Oregon
- Texas A&M
- Mississippi
- Oklahoma
- Notre Dame
- Alabama
- Virginia
- Tulane
First Round
- No. 12 Tulane at No. 5 Oregon
- No. 11 Virginia at No. 6 Texas A&M
- No. 10 Alabama at No. 7 Mississippi
- No. 9 Notre Dame at No. 8 Oklahoma
Quarterfinals
- Cotton Bowl: No. 4 Texas Tech vs. winner of No. 12 Tulane at No. 5 Oregon
- Sugar Bowl: No. 3 Georgia vs. winner of No. 11 Virginia at No. 6 Texas A&M
- Orange Bowl: No. 2 Indiana vs. winner of No. 10 Alabama at No. 7 Mississippi
- Rose Bowl: No. 1 Ohio State vs. winner of No. 9 Notre Dame at No. 8 Oklahoma
No. 12 Tulane at No. 5 Oregon
The American championship game is set and it may wind up being a matchup of two Power 4 head coaches aiming to secure a CFP berth on their way out the door. The Green Wave will host North Texas on Friday night and there may be more eyes on that meeting than you would expect given the modest fan bases of the two programs. As for the Ducks, they have gone a mere 24–2 the past two seasons and locked up their second CFP trip with that win over Washington.
No. 11 Virginia at No. 6 Texas A&M
Hats off to Tony Elliott for engineering one of the best turnarounds in the ACC of the last few years. The Cavaliers lucked out with their draw in the conference title game but better beware because Duke can throw the ball around the yard and Manny Diaz is no slouch coming up with some one-off defenses. As for Mike Elko’s team, we’re about to find out if the old adage of losing before the tournament that seems to become a talking point around March Madness holds any water when it comes to the football version of the bracket.
No. 10 Alabama at No. 7 Mississippi
The Rebels locked up a berth in the CFP by thumping their rivals in Starkville, Miss., but now comes the waiting to see if their head coach will be on the way out and whether that impacts the possibility of hosting a playoff game. Safe to say it will be the biggest 24 hours for the program away from the field in some time. Meanwhile, the Crimson Tide are simply in position to lock up a first-round game at Bryant-Denny Stadium if they can beat a Georgia team they seem to have a hex over.
No. 9 Notre Dame at No. 8 Oklahoma
The Sooners sure love to live dangerously, playing another knife-edge game in SEC play but eking it out in the end against LSU. That’s great news for Oklahoma when it comes to locking up its spot in the playoff, less so for all of the other at-larges out there. You wonder if the offensive struggles we’ve seen the past few weeks will be enough to drop the team one spot and cost them a home game in the first round though.
Cotton Bowl: No. 4 Texas Tech
What a double dose of luck for the Red Raiders on Friday night. While nobody in Lubbock would have been actively cheering on a Texas team, the fact that they did beat hated rival Texas A&M so that Tech could earn a quarterfinal berth—likely the Cotton Bowl a short(ish) drive away—is the best-case scenario for the team going into the Big 12 title game.
Sugar Bowl: No. 3 Georgia
Kirby Smart might be the lone coach in the country who is thrilled every time he has an opportunity to win the conference title. Even better, the trip back to Atlanta for the Bulldogs prevents what could have been a full monthlong layoff between that win over Georgia Tech and their quarterfinal.
Orange Bowl: No. 2 Indiana
It’s pretty incredible, even for non-Indiana fans, to somehow wrap your mind around the Hoosiers beginning this season as the losingest FBS program in the sport and somehow locking up their second straight CFP appearance with an undefeated regular season. Curt Cignetti is surely a miracle worker, but there’s one more opportunity that beckons just up the road in Indianapolis next Saturday.
Rose Bowl: No. 1 Ohio State
In terms of pure catharsis, that win over Michigan at the Big House had a little bit of everything. It had some nervous moments where it looked like the Wolverines were going to make a game of it, it had Brutus doing snow writing, there were big hits and the return of Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate making big plays. But most all for Ryan Day & Co., it was a win that allows them to turn their attention to the latest No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup that arrives next week in Indy.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as College Football Playoff Bracket Week 14 Live Projections: Did Rivalry Week Affect Seeding?.
