2025 Week 11 12-team College Football Playoff prediction: The ACC's chaotic collapse

Last season, the SEC only sent three teams to the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff. This year, it appears as though the league will atone for that misstep by sending five into the CFP. The Big 12 and the ACC both helped that cause in Week 11. 

The Big 12 is a one-bid league

We thought it was Utah vs. Texas Tech, but the Big 12’s game of the year was BYU and Texas Tech in Lubbock on Saturday, and the Red Raiders dominated. Behren Morton and the Red Raider offense struggled to convert red zone trips into touchdowns and left a fair bit of meat on the bone, but that just meant that Texas Tech won by 22, not 42. 

The BYU offense had no hope of moving the ball, especially after falling into an unfavorable game script thanks to first-half special teams miscues that cost six points. Texas Tech has an SEC-caliber defensive line, and though BYU will likely get another shot at the Red Raiders in the Big 12 Championship Game, it feels safe to say that matchup won’t look terribly dissimilar from this one. 

If Texas Tech runs the table and wins the conference, the Big 12 will almost certainly be a one-bid league. The ACC, considering the chaos of Saturday, will be happy to even get that many into the field. 

The ACC may not even deserve one bid

The ACC’s top contenders for the CFP heading into Week 11, Virginia and Louisville, both lost conference matchups that sent them tumbling in the AP Poll, and on Tuesday night, they’ll slide considerably in the CFP rankings. 

Georgia Tech is the favorite to win the league and the bid, but there’s a world where Duke, with three non-conference losses, including one to UConn on Saturday, wins the ACC. If that happens, it could be a real debate whether or not the Blue Devils should be one of the five-highest-ranked conference champions over the American Champion and James Madison from the Sun Belt. 

The real contenders handled their business

As for the real national championship contenders, they all held serve in Week 11. Indiana got a scare from Penn State in Happy Valley before Fernando Mendoza’s late-game heroics. Oregon, if you want to consider the Ducks a true contender, got pushed to the brink in Iowa City despite running the ball all over the Hawkeyes. Ohio State, Texas A&M, Alabama, Georgia, and Ole Miss all won, fairly convincingly. 

The Crimson Tide cannot figure out how to run the ball, even against a porous LSU run defense. Yet, with Ty Simpson playing as well as he is and Ryan Williams beginning to play like a superstar again, it probably won’t matter. I still have Alabama as the SEC Champion in this weekly CFP prediction, but that matchup with Texas A&M will be interesting because the Aggies should be able to get pressure on Simpson.