Our experts’ College Football Playoff, Heisman and national title predictions for 2025

Texas is atop the preseason college football polls, and it’s also The Athletic staff’s favorite to win its first national championship since 2005. And yet: Few of the 28 writers and editors we surveyed believe Arch Manning will win the Heisman Trophy.

So how will the 2025 college football season play out? We compiled our staff’s best guesses for the national championship game, the Heisman, conference championships and the College Football Playoff field — plus some hot takes and bold predictions.

Who will win the national championship?

Texas is No. 1 in the preseason coaches poll and AP poll. And it’s the overwhelming No. 1 here, too, getting 12 of 28 votes — short of a majority, but seven more than anyone else. Last August, a higher percentage of voters here — 16 of 28 — picked Ohio State to win the national title, which proved prophetic despite the Buckeyes’ regular-season losses to Oregon and Michigan.

Can Texas repeat our predictive prowess? Let’s turn to one staff member who chose each team to explain our seven national championship picks:

Why Texas?

Although Manning’s sample size (95 career passes) is too small to tell us whether he’ll live up to his sky-high ceiling, it’s large enough to show a high floor. That might be good enough with this defense and supporting cast. My feelings about the Longhorns are similar to how I felt about Ohio State before last year and Georgia before Kirby Smart’s titles: They’ve amassed enough talent and gotten close enough (back-to-back semifinalists) to make me think they’ll eventually break through. Why not this year? — Matt Baker

Why Clemson?

Dabo Swinney didn’t forget how to win, and Clemson has a lot of really solid pieces that are hard not to like. Cade Klubnik is viewed by many as the best quarterback in college football and enters his third year in coordinator Garrett Riley’s system with a strong group of receivers. The defense has stars with elite talent at every level, headlined by linemen T.J. Parker and Peter Woods, and a good, experienced coordinator in place with Tom Allen, who Swinney plucked from Penn State. This all sounds like a familiar formula Clemson utilized to win two national championships last decade. — Antonio Morales

Why LSU?

LSU has enough talent to win the title. I’m betting it comes together against an SEC and preseason top 10 littered with question marks. Quarterback Garrett Nussmeier is back with high potential and a stacked group of receivers. The Tigers have to replace four starters on the offensive line, but head coach Brian Kelly went heavy in the portal, including a couple of projected starters up front. LSU also bolstered an improving defense that welcomes back Whit Weeks and Harold Perkins. The schedule is tough (as always), but continuity at QB, incoming impact players and Kelly feeling a little heat from his seat could be the recipe that brings another trophy to Baton Rouge. — Justin Williams

Why Notre Dame?

Notre Dame showed it was a program built for the Playoff in 2024, and increasingly, the Playoff feels like it’s being built for Notre Dame, as this year’s seeding tweak allows the Irish a first-round bye if they finish in the selection committee’s top four. The trench play and the return of standout rushers Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price make me less concerned than most that we still don’t know which quarterback will hand off to them in Week 1. The schedule provides a few early gut checks (starting with Miami and Texas A&M) followed by what should be a long runway to fine-tune for December and January. — Eric Single

Why Georgia?

This pick is equal parts Georgia still being really good (more on that in a minute) and equal parts that there were no other teams that screamed sure-fire preseason No. 1. I understand the arguments for Penn State, Texas and Ohio State (among a few others), but I’d also put Georgia in that same class. The talent on both sides of the line of scrimmage is elite. The defense has fewer question marks, but the offense could take a step forward thanks to a much-improved receiving corps and more consistent play (and fewer turnovers) at quarterback. And while the schedule is brutal (and I’m no gambling expert), there is a decent chance the Bulldogs will be favored in every regular-season game. — Mitch Light

Why Penn State?

You don’t get over the hump until you do. We didn’t think Michigan could get past Ohio State. We didn’t think Texas could be “back” until those things happened again. Penn State looks so much like Michigan and Ohio State of the past two years, with a team full of NFL players who came back another year to try to win it all. It’s not a flawless team — pass-catching weapons need to step up — but it’s a good mix of talent and experience. Yes, James Franklin is 1-15 against top-five teams at Penn State, but he rarely had the better team in those matchups. This year, he does. And in a 12-team CFP, you can lose a game or two and still win. Penn State gets over the hump and wins it all. — Chris Vannini

Why Ohio State?

“He (Ryan Day) finally won with a veteran-laden team and help from his mentor. I expect to see the old underachiever resurface this season.” — Commenter LD, on Cameron Teague Robinson’s great look into Ohio State’s recession-proof program.

Right, right. Replacing 14 draft picks. A new quarterback in town. Michigan is once again in a spiral for something stupid, which has become prime trap circumstances for the Buckeyes. As a dumbfounded Day stared at the circus before him after his Buckeyes lost to the Wolverines last season, I told my colleagues Matt Brown and Bruce Feldman that Day would win it all thereafter. And then, after OSU beat Texas to make the title game, I had this conversation with a non-colleges desk employee at The Athletic, who is a major Buckeyes fan:

Me: Are you elated?
Colleague: Meh. I didn’t forget about Michigan lol
Me: I was wondering if OSU fans would feel that way
Colleague: If you need more toxicity, I know where to find them haha
Me: I love it. I pitched this exact column to Joe Rexrode
Colleague: Thank you! It’s weird, but I just know Michigan fans would point out how we lost to them this year, and the championship is just Febreze over the anger lol.

Don’t sleep on fake pain for the Buckeyes. To go back-to-back, Ohio State will lose to Penn State in the regular season, giving PSU false hope (and real pain), but then the Buckeyes will beat the Nittany Lions in the postseason and win it all again. Some OSU fans will still hate Ryan Day. — Jill Thaw

Who will lose in the national title game?

Whereas 12 of the 17 voters who picked Texas to make it to Miami on Jan. 19 believe the Longhorns will hoist the College Football Playoff national championship trophy, Clemson and Penn State don’t inspire as much faith to get it done in the end.

Clemson got nine national title loser votes to five wins, while Penn State — with its lingering big-game questions under Franklin — got seven national title loser votes to just three wins.

Not surprisingly, Clemson vs. Texas (in a rematch of a first-round game last December) is our most popular choice for the national championship matchup, followed by an Ohio State-Texas rematch of their Week 1 showdown in Columbus. In all, our 28 voters chose 13 national title game matchups:

Who will win the Heisman Trophy?

Our preseason College Football Quarterback Tiers, which ranked all 136 projected starters, showcased a stellar crop of quarterbacks … but a lack of consensus on who is truly the best. The lack of clarity atop the quarterback pecking order makes it even easier for such a large chunk of our staff to favor the consensus best overall player in the country, Jeremiah Smith, to take home the Heisman Trophy.

There are hurdles, of course: Though DeVonta Smith won at Alabama in 2020, the Heisman is a tough sell for pure wide receivers. Travis Hunter won last year but did so while pulling double-duty as a cornerback, and Desmond Howard (1991), Tim Brown (1987) and Johnny Rodgers (1972) leaned heavily on their versatility on special teams. Plus, Jeremiah Smith is part of a deep Ohio State receiving corps playing with a new starting quarterback, Julian Sayin.

Still, more than half of our voters are betting on his pure talent winning out after the No. 1 recruit dazzled as a freshman, catching 76 passes for 1,315 yards and 15 touchdowns for the national championships. He’s a clear No. 1 over three quarterbacks who have high-profile Week 1 games: LSU’s Nussmeier visits Clemson’s Klubnik (in a matchup of the top two players in our QB Tiers), while Texas’ Manning visits Ohio State.

Manning may be the betting favorite to win the Heisman and Texas may be our national championship favorite, but our staff isn’t sold on Arch becoming the first Manning to win the Heisman. (This year, at least.)

Conference championships and Playoff bids

Last preseason, our panel gave five teams votes to win the ACC, with nearly half going to Florida State … which went on to have one of the worst collapses in college football history at 2-10. Ten voters correctly called Clemson, which beat the unexpected runner-up SMU.

Once again, SMU got zero preseason votes to win the ACC title, though it did at least get one vote to make a return trip to the CFP. Clemson was two votes shy of being a unanimous ACC title choice, with all 28 voters believing the Tigers will make the Playoff.

Two brave staffers believe Miami will, finally, in its 22nd season in the conference, win the ACC championship behind Georgia transfer quarterback Carson Beck.

It should come as no surprise that the Big 12 has no consensus. Nobody got more than 21 percent of the conference championship vote in the most wide-open Power 4 conference, with Arizona State and Texas Tech coming out on top with just six of 28 votes each.

That’s the same Texas Tech that has never won the Big 12 since its formation in 1996 and has never finished ranked in the AP top 10. Of course, those who have been paying attention to the world of NIL and the transfer portal would argue this might not be the same Texas Tech.

Last year’s surprise champion Arizona State has most of its roster returning, with the important exception of All-American running back Cam Skattebo, and the Sun Devils garnered the most support for a Playoff bid

The next two teams, Kansas State and Iowa State, open the season in Ireland on Saturday. The Cyclones are still searching for their first conference title since they went 2-0 in the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1912.

Nine of the 16 teams in the Big 12 received at least one vote for a Playoff bid, including seven getting at least one call for a conference title.

Penn State last beat Ohio State in 2016, which is also the last time it won the Big Ten title. The Nittany Lions came up short in a shootout against Oregon last December, and now more than half of our staff likes Penn State to get over the hump with so much of last year’s national semifinalist roster returning.

Ohio State, which received most of the remaining votes, is actually searching for its first conference championship since 2020, before its four-game losing streak to Michigan, which received zero votes. The Buckeyes received unanimous support to make the Playoff, while one panelist doesn’t believe the Penn State hype and left the Nittany Lions out of the bracket.

There’s a clear top three here with Oregon included. Iowa got four CFP votes, and Nebraska — which hasn’t beaten a ranked team since 2016 — got more CFP votes than Indiana (last year’s surprise Playoff team) and Illinois (2025 preseason darling) combined.

Texas came up just short of an SEC title in its inaugural season in the conference last year, falling to Georgia in Atlanta. Now it’s a heavy favorite to win the league in our survey at 64 percent of the vote. Can the Longhorns break an 11-year streak of Alabama, Georgia or LSU winning the SEC?

Those three teams are not surprisingly next on the list, with Texas A&M — which hasn’t won a conference title since 1998 in the Big 12 — also garnering one vote as a sleeper.

The SEC is the only conference to have 10 teams (out of its 16) get at least one vote for a Playoff bid.

Just like last year, at least one Group of 5 team is guaranteed to make the Playoff because the field includes the five highest-ranked conference champions. Group of 5 teams are also eligible for at-large bids, but none of our 28 voters picked more than one G5 team to make the field.

Ten people like Boise State to make a return trip to the Playoff out of the Mountain West without Heisman runner-up Ashton Jeanty, putting it ahead of Tulane, Navy and Memphis from The American.

Who will make the College Football Playoff?

Using our conference championship picks and a points system (12 for a No. 1 seed, 11 for a No. 2 seed, etc.), we came up with The Athletic’s consensus preseason College Football Playoff predictions below. Remember, though the top five conference championships will receive bids again, this time the field is using a straight seeding model based on the selection committee’s rankings. The four first-round byes are no longer reserved for conference champions.

Ten teams got at least half of the staff’s vote to make the Playoff: Texas, Clemson and Ohio State were unanimous picks, Penn State fell one short and Notre Dame, Georgia, LSU, Oregon, Alabama and Miami all received at least 14 votes. Big 12 champion Arizona State and Mountain West champion Boise State round out the bracket.

In total, 41 teams received at least one vote to earn a Playoff bid.

Bold predictions and hot takes

Lastly, we asked our panelists to submit their bold predictions for the season. Here’s a selection of the best:

Austin Meek: One of these four teams will make the CFP: Minnesota, Kansas, Syracuse, Baylor.

Pete Sampson: USC will fire Lincoln Riley after a 7-5 season … and maybe before then. USC has invested in its football program with a new general manager and a big bet on NIL. Yet the talent level isn’t what it used to be under Pete Carroll or even the coaches who followed him. Despite the cost of pulling the ripcord on Riley after three years, a three-game skid at midseason — losses at Illinois, home to Michigan and at Notre Dame — makes Riley’s future untenable.

Eric Single: Clay Helton’s Georgia Southern 35, Lincoln Riley’s USC 31.

Seth Emerson: The CFP manages to match up Georgia with Carson Beck and Miami in a first-round game.

Christopher Kamrani: Carson Beck will be replaced as Miami’s QB by late October.

Ralph D. Russo: Amid relentless rumors about James Franklin being considered for the vacant Florida job, Penn State is knocked out of the quarterfinals of the CFP. Franklin leaves to replace Billy Napier, who was fired in late December. The move ushers in a new era of coaching changes in the expanded Playoff era.

Jill Thaw: Rutgers will go 2-1 against any combination of vs. Oregon, vs. Penn State and at Illinois.

Jason Kirk: After Notre Dame wins the national title, everyone else will immediately restore the You Must Win A Conference To Get A Playoff Bye rule.

Kate Hairopoulos: UNC and Bill Belichick take advantage of an easy schedule to win nine games.

Scott Dochterman: The Big 12 will have four, maybe even five, teams tie at the top with 7-2 records.

Matt Brown: After Texas beats Texas A&M to close the regular season, Texas A&M beats Texas to win the SEC championship a week later … and Georgia and Alabama both miss the Playoff.

Mitch Sherman: Arch Manning will throw for 300 yards in all of Texas’ first five games, including road wins at Ohio State and Florida. Then he’ll throw four interceptions against Oklahoma.

Grace Raynor: The loser of Ohio State-Texas wins it all.

(Illustration: Will Tullos / The Athletic; photos: Todd Kirkland, Louis Grasse, Sam Hodde, Jack Gorman / Getty Images)