"Granted, we incredibly don't know for sure what next year's CFP will look like for sure -- hey, you can't rush these things, we might only need another three or four years of debates in fancy hotel ballrooms before reaching an obvious answer. Since, however, a 12-team playoff has turned out to be a lot of fun, we stick with 12 for a while longer."
"In terms of expectations, that's a perfectly sound place to start. But this sport likes to scoff at best-laid plans sometimes -- just ask Texas (No. 2 on Schlabach's list last January), Penn State (No. 3), Clemson (No. 7), LSU (No. 8) and South Carolina (No. 10). We get a lot of things right, but this sport still sets us up to whiff a lot."
A 12-team College Football Playoff projection is created using Mark Schlabach's Way-Too-Early Top 25 as a starting point, producing a hypothetical first-round bracket that pairs No. 9 Ole Miss at No. 8 Miami, No. 12 (undetermined Group of 5) at No. 5 Oregon, No. 11 BYU at No. 6 Ohio State, and No. 10 Texas A&M at No. 7 Texas Tech. The absence of a clear Group of 5 representative reflects coaching turnover and transfer-portal talent movement. Historical preseason misses — Texas, Penn State, Clemson, LSU, South Carolina — underscore the sport's unpredictability. Conference title races, at-large bids and the Group of 5 auto-bid will shape the real field.
Read at ESPN.com
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