It’s August and no games have been played, but that’s not keeping ESPN’s college football reporters from predicting the 12 schools that will make up the College Football Playoff beginning in December.

Ohio State won the inaugural 12-team bracket last season, despite starting as the No. 8 seed, demonstrating that the playoff truly gives new life to any team that gains entry.

There’s a slight alteration to the format this year. The tournament will still comprise the top five conference champions and seven at-large schools. But the top four seeds — and the first-round bye that comes with each of those seeds — will no longer go to the four highest-ranked conference champions (last season that was Oregon, Georgia, Boise State and Arizona State). This season the committee has moved to a straight seeding model, so the four highest-ranked schools in the committee’s final top 12 will get the top four seeds.

Ahead of Week 0, here are the slates our reporters picked. Let the chase begin:

Andrea Adelson: 1. Clemson 2. Penn State 3. Texas 4. LSU 5. Georgia 6. Ohio State 7. Notre Dame 8. Miami 9. Alabama 10. Iowa State 11. Nebraska 12. Boise State

Kyle Bonagura: 1. Texas 2. Penn State 3. Ohio State 4. Clemson 5. Georgia 6. Notre Dame 7. Alabama 8. Oregon 9. LSU 10. Arizona State 11. Miami 12. Boise State

Bill Connelly: 1. Penn State 2. Alabama 3. Texas 4. Ohio State 5. Georgia 6. Notre Dame 7. Texas A&M 8. Clemson 9. Oregon 10. Boise State 11. Miami 12. Kansas State

Heather Dinich: 1. Penn State, 2. Clemson, 3. Texas 4. LSU 5. Georgia 6. Ohio State 7. Notre Dame 8. Alabama 9. Miami 10. Oregon 11. Kansas State 12. Boise State

David Hale: 1. Ohio State 2. Texas 3. Clemson 4. Penn State 5. Notre Dame 6. Georgia 7. Oregon 8. LSU 9. Texas A&M 10. Kansas State 11. Miami 12. Toledo

Eli Lederman: 1. Penn State 2. Texas 3. Clemson 4. Ohio State 5. Notre Dame 6. Alabama 7. Oregon 8. Georgia 9. Arizona State 10. LSU 11. Miami 12. Boise State

Max Olson: 1. Texas. 2. Penn State. 3. Notre Dame. 4. Clemson. 5. Alabama. 6. Oregon. 7. Georgia. 8. Ohio State. 9. Texas Tech. 10. LSU. 11. Utah. 12. Boise State

Adam Rittenberg: 1. Texas 2. Penn State 3. Clemson 4. Georgia 5. Alabama 6. Ohio State 7. Notre Dame 8. Oregon 9. Miami 10. Iowa State 11. Boise State 12. Illinois

Mark Schlabach: 1. Texas 2. Clemson 3. Penn State 4. Georgia 5. Ohio State 6. Alabama 7. Notre Dame 8. Oregon 9. Miami 10. LSU 11. Arizona State 12. Boise State

Jake Trotter: 1. Texas, 2. Clemson, 3. Penn State, 4. LSU, 5. Ohio State, 6. Notre Dame, 7. Georgia, 8. Oregon, 9. Illinois, 10. South Carolina, 11. Texas Tech, 12. Tulane

Paolo Uggetti: 1. Ohio State, 2. Georgia, 3. Texas 4. Penn State 5. Notre Dame 6. Clemson 7. Oregon 8. LSU 9. Arizona State 10. Miami 11. South Carolina 12. Boise State

Dave Wilson: 1. Texas 2. Penn State 3. Clemson 4. Ohio State 5. Georgia 6. Notre Dame 7. Alabama 8. Oregon 9. LSU 10. Arizona State 11. Miami 12. Boise State

South Carolina announced Monday that transfer running back Rahsul Faison has been granted an additional season of eligibility by the NCAA to play this season.

Faison, a Utah State transfer who earned second-team All-Mountain West honors in 2024, signed with the Gamecocks in January but had to wait until the week of the season opener to finally get cleared to play.

“I applaud the NCAA for looking at all of the facts in Rahsul Faison’s appeal and making the right decision today,” South Carolina athletic director Jeremiah Donati wrote on X. “He has been patiently waiting for this decision, and we share in his excitement to have one more year of eligibility and be a member of our football team this year.”

The No. 5 running back in ESPN’s transfer portal top 100 rankings will be a seventh-year senior this fall and is expected to make a significant impact in a South Carolina offense that must replace All-SEC running back Raheim Sanders.

Faison was expected to enter the NFL draft after rushing for 1,109 yards and eight touchdowns at Utah State last season, but he instead opted to enter the transfer portal after the NCAA issued a blanket waiver in response to the case of Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, granting an additional year of eligibility to former junior college transfers who would have exhausted their NCAA eligibility following the 2024-25 season.

Faison, 25, spent two years at Snow College in Utah in 2021 and 2022 and also took online courses at Lackawanna College in Pennsylvania in 2020. South Carolina had been working since January to get Faison’s additional season of eligibility granted in a lengthy NCAA waiver process that South Carolina coach Shane Beamer called “frustrating” in May.

The 6-foot, 218-pound back rushed for 1,845 yards and 13 touchdowns over his two seasons at Utah State with seven 100-yard performances. Faison forced 98 missed tackles during his time with the Aggies, second-most in the Mountain West behind Boise State‘s Ashton Jeanty according to ESPN Research.

The preseason No. 13 Gamecocks open the season on Sunday (2 p.m. ET, ESPN) against Virginia Tech at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

The NCAA and online payment service Venmo announced a partnership Tuesday aiming to combat abuse and harassment of college athletes, some of whom have reported receiving unwanted requests for money from losing bettors and solicitation for inside information.

The NCAA-Venmo partnership features a dedicated hotline for athletes to report abuse and harassment, education on account security, and increased monitoring. Venmo’s security team will monitor social media trends and events during games, such as last-second missed field goals, that have triggered surges in unwanted interactions.

The reporting hotline launched Tuesday.

The NCAA says its research shows that close to 20% of online abuse and harassment directed at college basketball and football players on social media is connected to sports betting. On Venmo, most of the harassment comes in the form of requests for payment from gamblers who lost a bet related to the athlete, according to an NCAA official.

“We have heard of solicitation of insider information as well,” Clint Hangebrauck, NCAA managing director of enterprise risk management, told ESPN. “‘Hey, can you let me know if you’re going to play or not, and I’ll provide you some money,’ which is obviously really problematic for us from an integrity standpoint.”

David Szuchman, senior vice president of Venmo’s parent company, PayPal, told ESPN that the unwanted requests for money sent to athletes are infrequent on the platform but still “unacceptable.” He believes college athletes belong in a unique subset of Venmo customers who deserve a higher level of monitoring and protection.

“Harassment or abuse of any kind is not tolerated on the platform, and strict action is taken against users who violate our policies,” said Szuchman, who oversees financial crime and customer protection for the company.

Szuchman says if illicit activity is detected, the company is mandated by federal regulations to report it to law enforcement.

“We’re monitoring to make sure that we understand what’s coming into these student-athletes’ accounts that is unwanted,” Szuchman said. “Who is it coming from, and then, based on our terms and conditions, how do we treat them?”

College and professional athletes have spoken publicly about the payment requests they receive from gamblers on Venmo, which does not have any such partnerships with other sports leagues.

Venmo allows customers to send and receive money online, and, if users choose, includes a public display of the transaction and messages. Customers may choose to make their account private, with the transactions hidden from the public, but many enjoy the public interactions with friends, Hangebrauck said.

“They have friends that are students, and they want to be able to share pizza money, pay for going out to a movie that night or the trip they’re taking this weekend,” Hangebrauck said. “I think, in many respects, they just want to be normal college kids.

“This is a really unique and interesting population,” he said of student-athletes. “How do we let them operate in a way where they can feel like any other college kid but also have those enhanced measures around them to make sure they have a safe experience on their platforms?”

Hangebrauck said that the partnership with Venmo is novel for the NCAA but that he hopes other social media companies will take the issue of athlete harassment seriously.

“I hope in a lot of ways, this serves as a blueprint for us to reach out to other social media platforms,” Hangebrauck said.