2025 Week 5 12-team College Football Playoff prediction: Alabama is the SEC favorite

Kirby Smart is now 1-7 as a head coach against Alabama. Now, the one looms quite large, considering it came in the National Championship Game, but even under Kalen DeBoer, the Crimson Tide have Georgia’s number. 

Alabama got notched that seventh win over Kirby on Saturday in Athens, downing the Bulldogs 24-21, and while all over the team’s problems aren’t necessarily solved, Alabama might be the best of a group of flawed teams in the SEC. Jam Miller and Tim Keenan III’s returns from injury didn’t give the Tide a run game or help Kane Wommack’s defense stop the run, but Ty Simpson is good enough that it may not matter. 

The Tide were my preseason pick to win the SEC and the national championship, and while I’ve cooled on the latter, I’m back to picking Alabama to win the SEC. It’s not a perfect team, and the matchup with Diego Pavia next week is particularly terrifying for Wommack’s defense, but I’m most comfortable trusting Simpson to overcome them because he’s been fantastic. 

Read everything you need to know about Week 5 in college football: Table for 12 Week 5: James Franklin and Kirby Smart are at it again

Let’s look at the other SEC contenders. Ole Miss stifled LSU on the ground, but that defense came into Week 5 ranked outside the top 120 in the country in rushing success rate and averaging just 1.0 sack a game. I don’t trust that defensive line to win the league, or even make the College Football Playoff. 

LSU, well, LSU made Ole Miss’s defensive line look like world beaters on Saturday because its offensive line is so broken. The Tigers can’t overcome that, especially with Garrett Nussmeier less than 100 percent. I also have them out of the CFP prediction. Oklahoma, despite having the most dynamic quarterback in the conference and a top-three defense in the nation, is on the outside looking in, too. And Mateer’s hand injury doesn’t help. I have four SEC teams in the field now, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, because its defense is that elite, and Texas A&M, because it already has a win over Notre Dame and a quite favorable SEC schedule.

Still, heading into Week 6, there are 10 SEC teams I view as still alive for the CFP, and none would shock me if they made it: Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Missouri, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, and LSU. That’s in order of how likely I think they are to make the 12-team CFP field. 

The Big Ten, however, has the best two teams in the country, and a third that proved it isn’t so far behind. Oregon went into Happy Valley on Saturday night and may have needed two overtimes to do it, but left with a huge statement win over Penn State. Dante Moore was phenomenal, and the Ducks outclassed the Nittany Lions in the trenches. Yet, Ohio State continues to be the most impressive team in the country. 

The Buckeyes' defense lost four draft picks from its defensive line, and yet it could be even better this year because Caden Curry and Arvell Reese are both budding superstars for Matt Patricia, and I didn’t even mention Caleb Downs. Ohio State rolled Washington and its elite offense, 24-6 on the road, and is now firmly my pick to win the national title.