College Football Playoff bracket predictions: The Athletic’s experts vs. our readers

OK, it hasn’t exactly been a banner year for accurate college football predictions. But the field has been narrowed now: Just 12 teams have a chance to win the national championship in the College Football Playoff, and we’ve gathered predictions from 30 staff members at The Athletic, plus the projections model from our Austin Mock and votes from 2,551 readers, too.

Though there are many similarities between the three sets of predictions, our staff and our readers did come up with different consensus national championship picks. Who will prevail? Let’s dig in, round by round. (Also check out Bruce Feldman polling 24 coaches for their thoughts here.)

First round

It should come as no surprise that Oregon and Ole Miss are heavy favorites by all parties in their first-round matchups at home against Group of 5 teams.

The other two first-round games are split. Oklahoma beat Alabama last year and last month, but 18 of our 30 staffers like the Crimson Tide to win in Norman on Friday night. However, 55 percent of readers go with the Sooners after Alabama limped into the CFP with a rough final month.

Miami at Texas A&M on Saturday afternoon is even closer among our staff, with the Hurricanes getting 16 votes for a road upset. But two-thirds of readers like the Aggies to beat the last-at-large-team-in Hurricanes after their controversial leap over Notre Dame on selection day. We can neither confirm nor deny whether Irish fans stuffed the ballot box.

Quarterfinals

It still doesn’t quite feel real, right? Indiana, until recently the losingest program in major college football history, is the Big Ten champion with a Heisman Trophy winner, a national coach of the year and a perfect 13-0 record. It is No. 1 in the polls for the first time, and it will play one of the nation’s most storied programs in its first Rose Bowl since the 1967 season. Whether it’s Oklahoma or Alabama, the consensus firmly favors the Hoosiers winning the biggest game in program history to this point.

It’s hard to get more split than this, with apologies to James Madison. Texas Tech and Oregon nearly split our staff vote, with the edge going to Oregon, while Mock’s model slightly favors the Red Raiders and readers like the Ducks. Texas Tech is all but a lock for its first AP top-10 finish ever, and both programs are pursuing their first national championship.

There’s a lot more clarity in the Cotton Bowl than the Orange Bowl. The Buckeyes are an overwhelming favorite, no matter whom you ask, against an opponent that will boast a talented quarterback and disruptive defensive front, regardless of who wins between Texas A&M and Miami in the first round.

Georgia stumbled to a Sugar Bowl loss to Notre Dame last year — every team that had a first-round bye lost, in fact — and will try to get some manner of redemption as it pursues a third national title under Kirby Smart. The Bulldogs already beat Ole Miss once when Lane Kiffin was still on the sideline, and they would be heavily favored against Tulane, even if the game is in the Green Wave’s home city.

Semifinals

Again, it’s odd to see Alabama in a Playoff bracket with so little confidence in the Crimson Tide. Zero staff members picked Alabama, and Mock’s model and our readers aren’t much more confident in Kalen DeBoer’s squad. Indiana is the most popular choice to emerge out of the top half of the bracket, though the model thinks it’s fairly close between the Hoosiers, Texas Tech and Oregon. Again, readers and staffers prefer the Ducks to the Red Raiders.

Our staff and model like Ohio State; our readers prefer surging Georgia, which was most recently seen clobbering Alabama while the Buckeyes limped to 10 points against Indiana. Those two draw the overwhelming majority of the support, with a few stray votes for Texas A&M and Miami. Ole Miss garnered zero national championship game support from our staff.

National championship

We’ve come a long way from August, when Texas, LSU, Penn State and Clemson led our preseason national title vote (hey, Penn State and Clemson are playing each other in the postseason!).

Ask humans, and now there’s a clear top tier of national title contenders: Ohio State, Georgia and Indiana. Our staff gives Ohio State the edge, 10 percentage points ahead of Georgia and 20 ahead of Indiana. Readers swap Georgia to the top, followed by Ohio State and Indiana. Nobody else reaches double digits in either vote.

Mock’s model also likes Ohio State, but Indiana is next, followed by Texas Tech, Oregon and then Georgia. And coaches favor Georgia over Ohio State.

Let’s hear the case for the top contenders from our staff, followed by some final thoughts on the Playoff process from our readers.

Ohio State

“The Buckeyes learned how to turn it on in last year’s Playoff, muscle memory I expect will kick in again. And though losing to Indiana in the Big Ten championship is not the same as losing to Michigan, that will provide some extra motivation for Ohio State to repeat as champs.” — Justin Williams

“Perhaps Indiana should have earned my trust by now. Maybe I’m still affected by the logos on the helmet. But when I see Ohio State’s talent on both sides of the ball, and that it did it last year, the Buckeyes seem like the safest choice.” — Seth Emerson

“This field feels pretty wide-open, but I’ll default to one of my truisms: The team with the most dudes usually wins.” — Matt Baker

“I picked them in the preseason, baby. No goin’ back now.” — Jill Thaw

Indiana

“I was told by their star player that the Hoosiers ‘are the strongest glue ever,’ and I believe him.” — Christopher Kamrani

“It’s been 29 years since Florida became college football’s last first-time national champion. Everyone assumed Oregon would be the next one up, but I’m done with any Indiana skepticism. The Hoosiers can do it.” — Matt Brown

“Best Cinderella story ever.” — Manny Navarro

Georgia

“The Bulldogs have fixed the defense and rolled through the last month of the season. Kirby Smart looks like he’s having fun with this group. The vibes are good.” — Chris Vannini

“There’s still something to be said for physicality and Georgia has it in spades. The Dawgs have an offense that can score with just about anyone and a defense getting better by the week.” — Sam Khan Jr.

“Georgia feels like a team that’s getting better at the right time and it’s got national championship pedigree with Kirby Smart. The Dawgs have allowed 29 points in their past four games and have stuffed Alabama and Texas in a locker during their late-season run.” — Pete Sampson

Texas A&M

“The second-half meltdown at Texas seemed to stamp out any and all Aggie optimism, but one year of 12-team Playoff data indicates that it’s possible to win the national championship after losing to your biggest rival. A nasty defensive line and two electric receivers? The Ohio State similarities don’t stop there. File away for future use that by the Fiesta Bowl semifinal, the Aggies would have gone two full months without leaving the Lone Star State.” — Eric Single

Texas Tech

“‘Defense wins championships’ is a well-worn and sometimes thoroughly invalidated cliche. But I’m going with the two saltiest defenses in the game to meet for the championship. And while I’d take Ohio State over Texas Tech seven times out of 10 on a neutral field, this feels like the perfect year for a renegade upstart that outspent everyone to claim the prize. Well, outspent almost everyone. Not Ohio State and a few others, right? But we can’t stop talking about the Red Raiders’ payroll, and we won’t soon stop talking about their championship season.” — Joe Rexrode

Miami

“I love Miami’s team on the offensive and defensive lines. It feels like the Hurricanes are that ‘dangerous team nobody wants to play’ now that they are in the field.” — Daniel Shirley

Readers sound off on the Playoff

“The committee got it 100 percent right. Notre Dame lost head-to-head to Miami; that has to mean something. Further, everyone complaining about the G5 teams getting in over ND is missing what makes the Playoff fun, exciting and necessary. The 2007 Hawaii Rainbow Warriors and the 2017 UCF Knights walked so JMU and Tulane could run, and I hope they both run all the way to the national championship in Miami.” — Joe M.

“The current CFP format, while greatly reducing the interest in bowl games, has given us a much-improved end of the regular season, as well as the postseason. The bowl system was wonderfully unique to college football, but opt-outs and transfers were killing it long before a 12-team Playoff was enacted. In what other sport is 90 percent of the ‘postseason’ comprised of teams playing in exhibition games with 0 percent chance at a championship? My only major gripe with the committee/format is the inherent biases present when including sitting ADs. I don’t believe the committee has a calculated hidden agenda among themselves, but I don’t think it’s possible to have a group making truly unbiased opinions when the trickle-down financial impact of the field is so apparent.” — Chaz C.

“Big picture, I think Notre Dame should be in and Alabama should be out, but that was not an option given the rankings before conference championship weekend (would be a bad look to drop a title game participant for playing an extra game). The committee was right in the final poll having Miami over Notre Dame, but both should have been ranked above Alabama at the end of the regular season (FSU loss, anyone?), leaving Alabama on the bubble and needing a win to make it into the Playoff. They also made themselves look bad with the gap between Miami and ND in the rankings leading up to the final week.” — Mitch B.

“I don’t know why JMU and Tulane are in the mix. Those of us who love college football want to see the best teams play. Let JMU and Tulane have their own second tier natty rather than get their butts kicked.” — Pete S.

“The bottom of the Playoff field for the last two rankings were absolute gibberish and honestly suspect. Alabama jumps Notre Dame because its narrow victory over 5-7 Auburn was just sooo impressive, then doesn’t drop even a single spot after losing by three TDs? SMU fell two spots after losing by three in the ACC championship last year and was ranked behind every team, with fewer losses. Let’s do either one of those to Bama and kick them out of the field where a mediocre three-loss team belongs (I say all this as a certified Notre Dame hater).” — Josh P.

“The committee is pretty much a joke, but it is not totally their fault. Whoever decided the entire process needed to be shrouded in secrecy is mostly at fault. If a member is from a team in discussion, they should recuse themselves — and it should be public, like the ACC is doing with instant replay. That show once a week would have lot of viewers. They did not get it right, but people will always argue.” — Terry R.

“The committee did a better job than AI would have for the simple reason this is sports — humans aren’t supposed to be completely rational and perfect. The inconsistencies can and should at times be maddening. This is simply part of the game.” — Craig H.

“No format will please everyone. Having conference championships plus playoffs doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me, but I think the committee got enough right. It’s less the selections than it is the entire college football universe. It’s not the committee’s fault that realignment created these silly mega conferences that make playing through a conference completely impossible, necessitating a conference championship that ultimately is mostly meaningless with the advent of the increasingly bloated Playoff. Changing the format and criteria each year doesn’t help the committee’s credibility, though.” — Jess L.

“As with many large, complex projects, the first efforts are rough and approximate; we are closer to the final product, but not there yet. (No one can credibly argue that James Madison belongs.) But, have faith brothers and sisters: Given time and feedback, the committee will dial up something that approximates March Madness.” — Chuck S. 

“As a huge college football fan in my early 20s, I’m realizing this sport was never as organized or sacred as I wanted to believe. The current format is fine. The format last year was fine. The four-team format was fine, as was the BCS. The 64-team bracket in 2037 will also be fine. Fox and ESPN will fight to air 16-seed Auburn playing at undefeated, super-league champion favorite USF. College football is brilliant and resilient, no matter how hard those in power seek to destroy it. There is not an organized sport that is more subjective than this one. Every team’s argument for being included in the playoff is just that — an argument. Sure, some teams have better cases than others, yet us as fans need to remember our teams’ hopes and dreams rest on the shoulders of a dozen old administrators in lovely Grapevine, Texas. There is no right answer, there is not a solution everyone will accept.” — Smith C.

“Where do we start? I would like to see a true tournament based on the best teams available. Stop playing league championship games so there are no special considerations for the participants relative to teams that do not play in those contests. No byes, all teams play in a first round. That would require a 16-team playoff with all first-round games played on the highest-seeded team’s home field. Start the regular season a week or two earlier, and the championship game could be played and concluded on New Year’s Day. The portal window and signing day can occur the first week in January. Coaches should not be hired, signed to new schools or maybe even contacted until the season has ended.” — Don R.

“It’s a great bracket. Hate all the teams that barely missed the Playoff complaining. If you weren’t a shoo-in, you were never going to win it all.” — Trey T.