College Football Playoff Predictions: Athletics’ National Championship Picks

Who will win the first 12-team College Football Playoff? Six teams received at least one vote in our survey of 30 college football writers and editors on Athleticsa big change from 10 years of postseason tournaments where only four teams were in the field.

Although Oregon received a majority of the votes, there was plenty of variation as our staff filled out their brackets ahead of the first round, which begins with Indiana at Notre Dame on Friday night. In fact, even got no. 12 seed Clemson, which has three losses, a national championship vote.

Here’s who we picked and how those predictions compare to Austin Mock’s projection model:

First round

Unsurprisingly, the consensus among our 30 voters is chalk.

Per BetMGM, the better seed is favored by at least 7.5 points in each first round game. Mock’s projections give each favorite at least a 65 percent chance to win, and our closest staff vote is Tennessee getting 11 votes to win at Ohio State in a game that will undoubtedly present challenges for the Buckeyes, especially after the way their offense line played on in loss to Michigan.

Quarterfinals

Oregon ended up with a tough draw despite being the nation’s only undefeated team as it will head to the Rose Bowl to face the winner of Ohio State-Tennessee. Mock’s model gives the Ducks only a 53 percent chance of getting through. Ohio State would be a rematch as Oregon beat the Buckeyes 32-31 in a thriller in Eugene in October.

Still, 25 of our 30 voters picked Oregon to win the Rose Bowl, compared to just five for Ohio State and zero for Tennessee. Every person who picked the Buckeyes to beat Oregon also picked them to win the national title.

Arizona State is seeded fourth as the Big 12 champion but ranked 12th in the CFP Top 25 — nine spots behind Texas and four spots ahead of Clemson. Texas is the overwhelming favorite to both beat Clemson and get through the Sun Devils in the Peach Bowl to advance to an in-state semifinal in the Cotton Bowl, with only four people picking Arizona State to win and two picking Clemson.

Only three of 30 voters picked Indiana to beat Notre Dame, and none had the Hoosiers pulling off two upsets and also taking down Georgia. The staff is divided on a potential Georgia-Notre Dame Sugar Bowl, however: Fourteen of the 27 people to pick Notre Dame to beat Indiana also have the Fighting Irish to topple the Bulldogs.

This is the least calcareous part of the bracket. Most voters like Penn State to beat SMU at home, but our staff is excited for Boise State to revive its Cinderella status on New Year’s Eve in the Fiesta Bowl. Historically, both the Nittany Lions (7-0) and Broncos (3-0) are undefeated in the Fiesta Bowl. Here, only half of the 22 voters who picked Penn State to beat SMU also picked the Nittany Lions to beat Boise State. In all, Boise State gets 16 votes to win the Fiesta Bowl to Penn State’s 12 and SMU’s two.

Mock’s model disagrees as it has Penn State beating both SMU and Boise State 48 percent of the time.

Semifinals

Whoever comes out of the Oregon-Ohio State-Tennessee trio could end up with a tough draw in the Cotton Bowl semifinals against Texas, which would be playing close to home. Still, two-thirds of our staff likes Oregon to win the Cotton Bowl, while only five picked Ohio State, four picked Texas and one rolled with a surprise run to the national title game by the No. 12 seed Clemson.

Although Mock’s model puts the chances of Georgia, Penn State and Notre Dame advancing to the national title game all between 20 and 29 percent, our staff has mostly rallied around either Georgia or Notre Dame. Georgia received 15 votes to win the Orange Bowl to Notre Dame’s 12, while Penn State received only two and Boise State received one.

National Championship

Going undefeated is tough, but 17 of our 30 voters think Oregon can run the table to a 15-0 record to become the first new national champion since Florida in 1996. That’s a big step up from that the Ducks earn 10.7 percent of our votes in advance. and 6.7 percent of the midseason vote.

Only four teams received votes to win the national title in the preseason: Ohio State (57.1 percent), Georgia (28.6 percent), Oregon (10.7 percent) and Alabama (3.6 percent). That number grew to five by midseason: Texas (50 percent), Ohio State (36.7 percent), Oregon (6.7 percent), Georgia (3.3 percent) and Clemson (3.3 percent) .

Now, the field of possible national champions has been narrowed to just 12, but six teams received at least one vote to win it all. Here is a case for each of these six teams:

Oregon: Every other team has a weakness that has been exposed at some point. The teams that pose the biggest threats to Oregon — Ohio State, Texas and Georgia — looked vulnerable the last time they took the field. Oregon’s defense showed some cracks against Penn State, but the Ducks have shown they can win a shootout if they have to. And Dillon Gabriel is the quarterback I would want if I could pick a Playoff QB to lead a deep run. —Austin Meek

Ohio State: Ohio State put together a terrible game plan against Michigan, and it cost the Buckeyes dearly. I expect Ohio State to play much looser and put a premium on getting the nation’s best set of skill position players into the right spots and maximizing potential mismatches in its favor. —Scott Dochterman

Texas: The Longhorns have the best and deepest roster. For all the attention on the quarterbacks and Texas’ offense-minded head coach, it’s the defense that has carried the Longhorns: They allow just one point per possession. drive, lowest in FBS. And when the offense gets going, it makes Texas hard to beat. – Sam Khan Jr.

Georgia: Georgia is talented, extremely battle-tested (six games against top-16 teams), and most importantly, will be at its healthiest all season — except for quarterback Carson Beck, of course. Also, the title game is in Atlanta. – Stewart Mandel

Notre Dame: Notre Dame’s defense will get the job done. I love how this team responded to the loss to Northern Illinois and that will continue into the playoffs. The Irish were written off after that loss and Marcus Freeman’s group showed an impressive determination to get past it. —Daniel Shirley

Clemson: Quinn Ewers hasn’t looked 100 percent since September, Arizona State has to fly all the way to Atlanta for its quarterfinal, and the winner of the Rose Bowl could be running on steam by the semifinals. Ten years of CFP history has taught me that if something good can happen for Clemson in late December, it usually will. Cade Klubnik has been just enough, Bryant Wesco Jr. is on a Justyn Ross-like late-season trajectory, and I can’t help but assume that Dabo Swinney has the perfect mentality for tournament football. – Eric Single

So what matchup will we see for the National Championship on January 20th in Atlanta?

Stewart Mandel ranked all 36 options after the bracket was revealed. Our 30 voters came up with eight matchups, with No. 1 Oregon vs. no. 2 Georgia the most common with a third of the vote. Twenty-seven of the 30 had at least one from Oregon, Ohio State or Georgia, including two who chose Georgia to face Texas for the third time this season.

Special shout out to our one voter who went for the chaos bracket pick of Clemson vs. Boise State.

(Photo of Jalon Walker and Dillon Gabriel: Tim Warner, Ali Gradischer/Getty Images)