CFP winners and losers: Miami’s win helps the ACC and Big 12, the Group of Five nightmare and Michigan’s search turns tricky
Mocked and humiliated for weeks after producing a five-loss champion (Duke) that did not make the College Football Playoff, the ACC grabbed the final laugh Saturday with Miami’s road win on SEC turf in the most dramatic opening-round game.
Actually, the 10-3 victory over Texas A&M wasn’t the final laugh so much as a mid-negotiation chuckle. But it was hearty enough for the Big 12 to join in the jocularity.
The lesser of the two Power Four conferences finally have a playoff victory, thanks to the Hurricanes. Their escape in College Station on Saturday morning marked the first win for the ACC and Big 12 in the expansion era.
Teams from the SEC and Big Ten (or Notre Dame) won all 11 games last year in the first installment of the 12-team field, while the opening game of the 2025 event matched two teams from the SEC (Alabama and Oklahoma).
Miami’s performance means the SEC and Big Ten won’t sweep the tournament once again, and the timing could not be better.
While the 2025 edition of the CFP plays out on the field, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips and Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark are working with their colleagues to establish a format for future versions.
But all votes are not created equal. The SEC’s Greg Sankey and the Big Ten’s Tony Petitti possess the authority, through an agreement signed in the spring of 2024, to establish the field size and format. They are merely required to consult with the other conferences.
A deadline looms: Sankey and Petitti must determine by Jan. 23 if the CFP will expand to 14 or 16 teams for next season. Their discussions likely will include whether to create a 24-team event, and eliminate conference championship games, as early as 2027.
Petitti, in particular, has pushed for revised versions of the CFP that suit his membership and shown little interest in options that benefit the sport writ large. (For months, he pushed for an access model based on automatic qualifiers in which the SEC and Big Ten receive twice the number of guaranteed bids as the ACC and Big 12.)
What little leverage exists for Phillips and Yormark received a boost with Miami’s victory.
Next up for the 10th-seeded Hurricanes is a showdown with heavily-favored No. 2 Ohio State in the quarterfinals. Meanwhile, the Big 12’s only participant, No. 4 Texas Tech, in an underdog against No. 5 Oregon.
Put another way: The ACC and Big 12 could be eliminated from the CFP before the semifinal round for the second consecutive season. And this time, their twin exits would come just as negotiations over future editions are the most intense.
But courtesy of the Hurricanes, the other conferences have proved they belong — that they can not only compete with the SEC and Big Ten but beat the behemoths.
In that regard, the ACC and Big 12 were the biggest winners from the opening round.
Here’s our look at the other winners, and a few losers …
Loser: The Group of Five. The collection of non-power conferences generated two participants after Duke (8-5) won the ACC and was excluded from the playoff, creating an extra berth for James Madison. The unexpected development ramped up the pressure on the Dukes and Tulane to prove they could compete on the sport’s biggest stage. Instead, they suffered blowout losses to Oregon and Mississippi, respectively. (Combined score: 92-44.) Fortunately, the Group of Five’s place in future playoffs is reasonably secure, because any move by the Power Four to exclude half the teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision likely would prompt an antitrust lawsuit.
Winner: home games. The on-campus environment for CFP games trumps neutral-site matchups by an order of magnitude — that was evident last season and again this weekend. Hopefully, an expanded tournament in 2026 and beyond will include multiple rounds of home games. It’s pure lunacy that the undefeated No. 1 seed (Indiana) potentially will have three playoff games … and none of them in Bloomington.
Loser: drama. Only one of the four opening-round games produced a single-digit score (Miami-Texas A&M), and the average margin of victory was 16.3 points. That tracks with the average margin (15.2) from the wild card round games in the 2025 NFL Playoffs. Blowouts are part of the postseason in every sport, folks.
Winner: Alabama. Down 17-0 midway through the second quarter in Norman on Friday night, the Crimson Tide found their mojo and outscored Oklahoma 34-7 to mollify fans and polish a reputation damaged by the floundering finish to the regular season. Could Alabama win it all? Probably not. But the Tide certainly could win two more games.
Loser: Michigan. The Wolverines reportedly had Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer atop the list for their coaching vacancy, but any chance to lure him away from Tuscaloosa seemingly vanished with the Crimson Tide advancing to the Rose Bowl. Michigan can’t wait until the New Year to make a decision. (Or can it?)
Winner: Jedd Fisch. With DeBoer no longer a viable option for the Wolverines and Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham agreeing to an extension, Fisch, who coached in Ann Arbor under Jim Harbaugh in the mid-2010s, could emerge as a top target. (Keep an eye on Louisville’s Jeff Brohm, as well.)
Loser: college football media. A slew of pundits trashed Alabama’s inclusion on CFP selection day and used the 17-0 deficit at Oklahoma as fodder to heap additional scorn on the Crimson Tide. What happened next in Norman created a smorgasbord of content for the social media site @OldTakesExposed.
Winner: FCS playoffs. Mississippi’s blowout of Tulane in the early-afternoon game offered fans the opportunity to switch to the Brawl of the Wild, where Montana State blew a huge lead, then recovered to thump Montana in the FCS semifinals on ABC. (If there’s a better rivalry nickname in the sport, we haven’t seen it.)
Loser: Oregon’s defense. The Ducks allowed James Madison to score 34 points and gain 509 yards in the final game of Saturday’s triple-header. Granted, JMU’s success came after the game had turned lopsided. But it left the Ducks frustrated nonetheless.
Winner: Oregon coach Dan Lanning. Then again, the performance will give Lanning, a master motivator, plenty of fodder over the next 10 days as the Ducks prepare for Texas Tech in the Orange Bow.
Loser: placekickers. The opening round began with Oklahoma All-American Tate Sandell missing two crucial field goal attempts against Alabama and continued Saturday morning with the Miami and Texas A&M kickers combining to miss four of six. (Fortunately, accuracy improved in the final two games of the round.)
Winner: CFP quarterfinal matchups. Only one team, Ohio State, is favored by more than a touchdown, and all four games on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 offer reasonable paths to victory for the lower seed. (Miami has enough talent at the line of scrimmage to hang with the Buckeyes.) We expect several close games and far more thrills than the quarterfinals offered last season.
Loser: TNT and TBS. There’s a reason ESPN sub-licensed two opening-round games to Warner Bros. Discovery, then slotted the Tulane and James Madison games in the broadcast windows competing with the NFL’s doubleheader. The ratings could be ghastly.
Winner: The Rose Bowl. Rarely does the Granddaddy have an issue with ticket sales, but that certainly won’t be a problem with Indiana making its first appearance since the 1967 season and Alabama involved for just the second time in the past 80 years.
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