B/R Expert Bold Predictions for the 2025 College Football Playoff

After a wild offseason and four chaotic months of regular-season action, the 2025 College Football Playoff is set for kickoff.

It's prediction time, my friends.

Scan the 12-team bracket and a near-endless stream of storylines are available. Perhaps there will be a Group of Five breakout team, a low-seeded surge, marquee upsets or simply an expected champion. There will be surprise players, clutch moments and dramatic results throughout the Playoff.

You have your thoughts. We have ours. And everyone loves calling their shot, hoping to see that forecast come true.

Bleacher Report's college football crew—David Kenyon, Adam Kramer, Joel Reuter and Brad Shepard—have assembled to offer one major prediction for what we believe will happen in the CFP.

Kenyon: Texas Tech Surges to Title Game

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Texas Tech is a prime example of how high-end talent identification and evaluation, coaching and NIL management can create a winner.

Plenty of programs have money. Any number of them can recruit hard in the transfer portal. Good coaches are all over the country. Blending those factors together, though, is much easier said than done.

Texas Tech, at least in 2025, has crushed all three.

As a result, the Big 12-winning Red Raiders have earned a first-round bye. They'll likely take on Oregon in the quarterfinals, where Tech's transfer-fueled defensive line should be a rough matchup. The Ducks' offense has great overall numbers but has noticeably struggled against its best competition.

In the semifinal round, any of Indiana, Oklahoma or Alabama may await. Texas Tech's offense would be greatly tested no matter the opponent—and a shaky red-zone efficiency rate is cause for concern. But the Red Raiders, thanks to their defense, are built to survive a low-scoring game, too.

Even if the program's storybook run ends painfully shy of a national title, Joey McGuire has revamped expectations at Tech in a major way.

Kramer: Ohio State Cruises to Another Championship

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Jeremiah Smith

In many respects, this moment feels familiar for the Buckeyes. A perfect season was derailed, albeit against Indiana rather than rival Michigan.

The loss to the Hoosiers wasn't shocking, even if the performance was riddled with miscues throughout. That part felt familiar, although the vibe heading into the postseason one year later is vastly different.

Like last year, the Buckeyes will roll. Quarterback Julian Sayin has a season of seasoning, and he's played two of the best defenses in America. He will have a healthy group of wideouts to throw to, and we saw just how good Jeremiah Smith was in the postseason—and, well, pretty much every game he's played in.

And the defense? Elite. We saw it all season, despite the many departures from a year ago.

Sure, Ohio State will have to go through incredible teams once again, and that part of the bracket is particularly challenging. It doesn't matter, though.

This team has the talent and experience. OSU also has a coach capable of winning it all under challenging conditions, much like the conditions of a year ago.

This one isn't all that complicated. The deepest team in the country will rebound from a loss yet again, and that word—dynasty—will be tossed around a lot more freely moving forward.

Reuter: John Mateer Ascends NFL Draft Boards

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John Mateer

Over the first four weeks of the season, John Mateer looked like a bona fide Heisman Trophy candidate. He had tallied 1,215 passing yards, 190 rushing yards and 11 total touchdowns while leading Oklahoma to a 4-0 start that included wins over Michigan and Auburn.

However, he missed the team's fifth game after undergoing surgery to repair a broken bone in his right hand, then threw three interceptions in his return against Texas, a Red River Rivalry loss.

He showed flashes of his early-season greatness the further removed he was from the hand injury, leading the Sooners to road wins over Tennessee and Alabama, but he finished the regular season with a thud when he logged his second three-interception game of the season in a victory over Missouri.

Despite the ups and downs of his individual season, Oklahoma finished 10-2 and earned the No. 8 seed in the CFP, setting up another meeting with Alabama on Friday for a shot at advancing to the Rose Bowl and a showdown with the No. 1 seed Indiana.

Mateer's dual-threat skills and arm talent give him legitimate NFL upside, and a strong performance in the Playoff could vault him up draft boards and convince him to forego his final year of eligibility to enter the 2026 draft.

He would be more of a developmental pick than a plug-and-play starter, but with a lot up in the air as far as the 2026 QB class is concerned, he could be one of the draft's big movers in the coming weeks.

Shepard: Georgia Rolls to National Title

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Kirby Smart and Gunner Stockton

The Big Ten has had a stranglehold on the national championship over the past two seasons, and with Indiana and Ohio State flexing, the conference is the odds-on favorite to do it again.

As Lee Corso says, though: Not so fast, my friend.

It may be hard to believe, but a lot of folks are sleeping on Georgia, which is playing as well as anyone in the country.

The Bulldogs are a far cry from the team that should have lost in Knoxville—had Tennessee hit a field goal at the end of regulation—and then did lose to Alabama. They also struggled against Auburn and Florida.

However, coach Kirby Smart has as much talent at his disposal as any other team in the nation, his defense is playing lights-out lately, and the Dawgs have a quarterback in Gunner Stockton who simply doesn't make mistakes.

Smart consistently praises his team's toughness. When that happens, you know UGA is capable of beating anybody. The prediction here is that the Dawgs run roughshod over the field and bring the national title back to the SEC.