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INSTEAD OF A bank vault or a Brink’s truck, the betting slips from what could be the largest payout in sports gambling history are being guarded by nothing more than an old, tattered Houston Astros backpack. On a recent Tuesday afternoon in Houston, with the MLB playoffs about to begin, the faded blue nylon bag — its contents worth potentially millions — sits on the floor of the massive Gallery Furniture showroom, just within arm’s reach of its owner: the Houston furniture magnate and Astros superfan Jim McIngvale, better known around these parts and in the world of high-stakes sports gambling as “Mattress Mack.”

Lanky and seemingly equal parts ears, teeth, cowboy boots and charisma, McIngvale has been a household name in Houston for decades thanks to his wacky TV commercials and his Ross Perot delivery. “I just have what you might call a high tolerance for risk,” McIngvale says. “Damon Runyon said ‘All horse players die broke.’ And I know I shouldn’t bet with my heart, but it’s hard not to and it’s a lot more fun.” In 2017, McIngvale gained national notoriety for opening his doors and sheltering hundreds of victims of Hurricane Harvey for weeks inside his furniture showroom, something he also did after Hurricane Katrina years prior. After the storm, as the Astros continued their historic run to the 2017 World Series, McIngvale was in the news yet again, this time for an only-in-Texas furniture promotion through which anyone who bought a mattress from Gallery Furniture would get it for free if the Astros won it all.

In a rather ingenious move at the dawn of the legal sports gambling era, McIngvale hedged his potential business losses by placing seven-figure bets on the Astros. Good thing. He ended up having to refund more than $10 million worth of mattresses. “We take large wagers from sports bettors of all stripes, but I’m not sure anyone does it with as much panache as Mack,” says Ken Fuchs, head of sports at Caesars Entertainment. “That’s why I bring in [Hall of Fame baseball owner and promoter] Bill Veeck as the only comparison with Mack. He’s never afraid to make a statement or take a risk and, clearly, he has fun doing it.”

By the end of the 2017 MLB season, McIngvale was such a Houston institution the Astros brought him along as one of their own for the trip to the White House. “We invited Mack because he had become such an example of everything the Astros and Houston had been through together in that year,” says Anita Sehgal, the Astros’ senior vice president of marketing and communications. “Houstonians have watched him build his life in Houston while giving back every step of the way. That’s why they have a special love for him. For Mack it’s not about words, it’s about action.”

In more ways than one.

Now, five years later, with the Astros poised to face the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series, McIngvale’s original furniture promotion — and the epic sports bets behind it — have quintupled in size to what is about to be a record-breaking $75 million World Series squeeze play. By the start of the Fall Classic on Friday, McIngvale says he’ll have around $10 million (at an average 7.5-to-1 odds) riding on the Astros. In other words, the exact kind of nerve-frying, death-defying stakes Mattress Mack, 71, has been drawing aces his whole life.

On the eve of the MLB postseason, we spent time with McIngvale for a look behind the scenes at the remarkable life and times of Mattress Mack and the moments during the past four decades that led him to take such a big swing on his hometown team.

“I just get bored to death with stability, which is why I guess I like all of these big bets,” he shrugs, even as he faces the culmination of all his business success, sports-gambling excess and Astros madness. “I thrive on chaos.”

If that’s true, with an entire furniture fortune now riding on the Astros, McIngvale is about to have the time of his life.

IT’S JUST AFTER noon inside the bustling, 110,000-square-foot original Gallery Furniture showroom on the north side of Houston, and McIngvale is where he always is and where he hopes to remain “until I die” — behind the front desk, noshing on an orange and taking customer service calls. While McIngvale, who is worth an estimated $300 million, checks on the delivery status of a bedroom set, visitors wander through the property, a mesmerizing wonderland of furniture, kitsch, memorabilia and community outreach.

The football field-sized warehouse out back is stuffed with mattresses in anticipation of another Astros title. On the north side of the building is a daycare funded by McIngvale. To the south, a trade school. (The saying around here is that since the hurricane this location has become a community center disguised as a furniture showroom.) One 360-degree panorama near the entrance includes, I swear, the customized Texas A&M presidential motor scooter that belonged to George H.W. Bush, four stuffed raccoons playing poker on top of a bar, a glass showcase overflowing with humanitarian awards, a 30-foot nutcracker doll next to a similarly ginormous Christmas tree, a series of paintings of steers relaxing on sofas, a framed excerpt from Thomas Paine’s 1776 “Common Sense,” a 5-foot wooden fish carved from a tree stump and painted like the Texas flag, a six-piece leather, reclining living room set (last one, as is — no returns), a giant slab from a 513-year-old African Bubinga tree, a signed poster from the Chuck Norris movie “Sidekicks” and an ornately framed oil painting portrait of McIngvale’s north star, his father, George Sr.

In the 1960s Jim was a prep football standout at Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas, a school his father helped found. (Jim claims his junior high coach, Bob Barrett, was among the group of officers who arrested Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas Theatre.) A few years later when a former high school teammate of McIngvale’s didn’t have the money or the means to get back to college, George McIngvale put him in his car and drove him 2,000 miles back to Dartmouth. “My father was a giver, even when he didn’t have money to give, so he died without a lot, but he died very happy,” McIngvale says. “And that spontaneity, that taking care of people, that, maybe not a lot of thinking, but more just ‘ready-fire-aim’ approach to life? That’s where it comes from.”

EVEN THOUGH McINGVALE was a member of the legendary 1969 and 1970 Texas Longhorns football teams that won 30 straight games and back-to-back national titles, you can tell the overall importance of this experience in his life by where the Longhorns team photo is displayed inside Gallery Furniture: right above the customer restrooms. “I was a great football player, I just had two small problems,” McIngvale says. “I was too small and I was too slow.” Spending all that time on the sidelines, however, McIngvale became close with another major influence in his life, Frank Medina, the Longhorns trainer from 1945 to 1978. “He was all of 4-foot-10, but he was a fireball,” McIngvale says. “He’d get right up in your face and scream ‘What are you saving it for, son? Is that all you got?’ And he taught me this line: ‘Ask, take and give no quarter.’ In other words: Never give up and never ask for anything. Do it yourself.”

Before he started selling furniture, McIngvale was a “broke failure” living at home in Dallas, trying to keep the lights on at his first business, a fitness center. Around 1978, hoping to sell some gym memberships, he attended “Muhammad Ali Appreciation Day” at Market Hall in Dallas. Late in Ali’s career, in between fights, the three-time heavyweight champ cashed in on his popularity with barnstorming-type “exhibitions” where he’d spar with local heavyweights and sign autographs for fans. After quickly dispatching a handful of local heavyweight hopefuls, Ali, always the showman, grabbed the ring announcer’s microphone and taunted the crowd: “Any y’all want to fight?”

Only one hand went up.

It was McIngvale’s.

“OK, come on up here then, Great White Hope,” Ali yelled.

Inside the ring, as a trainer laced up McIngvale’s gloves, Ali leaned in and told McIngvale the plan for the spectacle. After sparring for a round, Ali would drop his guard and McIngvale would seemingly knock his lights out, then stand over Ali and taunt the fallen champ. McIngvale did exactly as Ali told him, and when the crowd turned on McIngvale, Ali miraculously sprang back to life, grabbed the mic and confessed to choreographing the entire stunt.

And not a second too soon.

“People in the crowd were already asking my friends, ‘Hey, are you with him?’ And they were like, ‘Uh, no, no, we’re not with him,'” McIngvale says.

McIngvale’s wife, Linda, was with him at the event. “It just showed what a great personality Ali had, and of course Mack loved that side of Ali. [Ali] was obviously the greatest boxer of all time, but what Mack also loved was he was also the greatest promoter of all time, too.”

Says McIngvale, “I just seem to stumble into these things. I’m not shy, and I have a high tolerance for risk. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

“It’s like when you lose a million-dollar bet, you just say, ‘What’s next?’ That’s all you can do. But I do know we sold a lot of gym memberships that day.”

AFTER GALLERY FURNITURE opened in 1981, a Texas oil bust forced Houstonians to tighten their belts and threatened to bankrupt McIngvale. Down to his last $10,000, McIngvale spent half on inventory and half on a TV commercial shoot. After three hours in front of the camera, though, he had nothing on tape he could use. “I was stuttering and stammering and down to my last take,” McIngvale says. “I had the day’s receipts in my back pocket, so I pulled those out and waved them around and said ‘Gallery Furniture will save you … MONEEEY!’ The producer said, ‘That’s it, that’s the commercial.’ And it stuck.” The over-the-top spots started airing late at night on Channel 39 in Texas, where McIngvale enjoyed a long association with Houston Wrestling and WWE Hall of Fame announcer Paul Boesch.

Mattress Mack was born.

Combined with McIngvale’s longtime association with the Astros, it’s a character who immediately draws comparisons to legendary MLB owner and promoter Bill Veeck, the man who, in 1979, gave us Disco Demolition Night. “Someone who bets big and bets with his heart, with a colorful personality,” Fuchs says. “Like Veeck, Mack thinks about ideas in such a large way, but he’s able to act on them and execute them.”

McIngvale’s catch phrase has been flooding the Houston airwaves nonstop since the 1980s. (He has screamed it while wearing a mattress, while nearly being trampled by livestock, while fighting Chuck Norris, tumbling with Olympians, arm wrestling comedian Joe Piscopo and posing next to pretty much every B-level celeb in Texas.) Mattress Mack has become a part of the community’s subconscious. McIngvale says he recently walked past an autistic teenager shopping for furniture with his parents, and the normally nonverbal child said, “Hiya, Mack!” His mother burst into tears.

“I’ve always been bombastic and wanted to be a big promoter like W.C. Fields or Bill Veeck,” McIngvale says. “That’s what I’ve always dreamed of being, and now I’m getting to live it out.”

McINGVALE’S APPETITE FOR sports gambling started in 2006 when he says he won $250,000 on Texas and Vince Young in the national championship game. But it was two die-hard Peyton Manning fans who helped him develop the idea to hedge his furniture promos with massive sports wagers. Well, kind of. In 2014, before the Broncos played the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLVIII, two employees convinced McIngvale there was no way on Earth that their boy Peyton would ever lose to the lowly Seahawks. So — ready, fire, aim! — McIngvale announced that if the Seahawks somehow beat Manning everyone would get their furniture for free. “I didn’t hedge anything on this at all,” he says, “and it really got away from me in the last three or four days.”

By Saturday, Gallery Furniture had sold every mattress, every sofa, every ottoman and every last lamp in stock. “The damnedest promotion we ever had,” McIngvale says. “On Saturday night at 7 o’clock I’m standing on top of the desk at the front of the store screaming at the people that they have to go home now, we have no more furniture. It. Was. Unbelievable. We sold every last stick of furniture we had. Never happened in our history before.”

McIngvale knew he was on to something. He was ecstatic. Right up until he did the math just before kickoff.

“I hadn’t told my wife or anyone else about this, but we were on the hook for a whole lot if Seattle won,” he says.

Far too nervous to watch the game, McIngvale ran on the treadmill in the exercise room at the back of his warehouse for three hours. (He doesn’t have a TV at home.) When the two Peyton Manning fans were nowhere to be found, McIngvale knew he was screwed. All he could do then was wait for the postgame call every gambler dreads. “The phone rang at the end of the game, I picked it up and I said, ‘Who won?’ and my wife says ‘Seattle won you big dummy, how much money did we lose?’ And I just spit it out: ‘Nine million. We’re out nine million,'” McIngvale recalls. (McIngvale has run this story through the Mattress Mack Filter in recent years. An ESPN story from 2014 says he actually lost $7 million.) “Let’s just say, yeah, she wasn’t a happy camper. That’s when I realized I needed to find a way to hedge this stuff somehow.”

In 2017, a day after Hurricane Harvey decimated Houston, Gallery Furniture inventory control manager Anthony Lebedzinski arrived at the showroom where, he says, McIngvale was already handing out keys to the company’s fleet of delivery trucks to any able-bodied adult willing to help rescue people from the floodwaters. Later that day while trying to reach a trapped family, Lebedzinski nearly drowned when he was sucked into the filthy floodwater by an open manhole cover. “He was halfway to Galveston Bay before he saved himself,” McIngvale says. Daring rescues like Lebedzinski’s continued for days until there were hundreds of families not just sheltering but living inside McIngvale’s pristine showroom. “Mack’s always first, first in the water, first to open his doors, first to help,” says Houston schoolteacher and Astros fan Deirdre Ricketts. “All Houstonians have big hearts, but Mack’s might be the biggest.”

“People asked, ‘How can you let them sleep on the brand-new furniture like that?'” McIngvale says. “What am I going to do, let them all drown? So that was it. To me, it was nothing. It was the right thing to do. And I wanted my kids to see me doing that. At the end of the day we’re all going to be judged by our creator, and he isn’t going to ask how much money we made. Instead, he or she will ask us how much of a difference did you make?”

McIngvale’s immediate, large-scale, open-arms policy set the tone and created a path forward in the terrifying, chaotic and critical early days of the city’s recovery. It was the best of Houston, Sehgal says, the way people took McIngvale’s example and ran with it, coming together across the board to help each other.

One of the temporary residents pulled out of the floodwaters and fed, clothed and sheltered at Gallery Furniture for several days was Khanh Doan, 31. At a recent home Astros game, Doan finally got to thank McIngvale in person.

For saving his life?

“No,” he says.

“For saving my life, my mother’s life and my father’s life.”

During the past decade McIngvale has also helped raise $12 million for tsunami relief, he delivered 25,000 care packages to seniors during the COVID pandemic and he opened his showroom again during last year’s winter storm and power outages. In August when the team from nearby Pearland, Texas, made it to the Little League World Series, McIngvale and the Astros raised money to send the players’ families to Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

“Mack’s always the first to step up for anything that’s impacting Houston,” Sehgal says. “Big or small.”

IF YOU REALLY want to catch a glimpse of McIngvale’s electric Mattress Mack alter ego, don’t ask about Texas football, his Elvis memorabilia collection or even his weakness for racehorses and Ferraris. Instead, ask about his life’s masterpiece: The Promotion. By combining all of his passions — furniture sales, community, sports, gambling and Texas-sized spectacle — McIngvale has achieved a kind of gambler’s nirvana by finding a way to bet millions upon millions on his beloved Astros and other teams without ever really “losing” a cent, all while pushing his brand equity through the roof.

Here’s how it works: It starts with picking underdogs and getting favorable odds. Because, without the futures aspect, none of the math works. For example, this season McIngvale’s initial $3 million bet at Caesars for the Astros to win it all at +1000 covered him for the first $30 million in potential furniture refunds. Next, McIngvale makes the grand announcement, which is some variation of: Spend $3,000 or more on a mattress and accept delivery within 24 hours, and if the Astros go on to win it all, your purchase is free. Then, the more furniture he sells through the promotion, the more McIngvale bets on the Astros, whose line has moved from 10-to-1 to 8-to-1 to 4-to-1 to their current status as World Series favorites.

Fuchs says McIngvale’s idea to use sports gambling as a business hedge is a different angle than anyone has ever seen before. “He’s laying off the risk with these wagers, covering one big loss with one big win,” adds Patrick Everson, senior reporter for Vegas Insider. “It’s kind of a genius business move, really. And, clearly, he’s got the money to lose. He’s not losing any sleep at all.”

What McIngvale really understands better than gambling, furniture or promotion, though, is human nature. Even the slightest chance to get something for free is practically irresistible to most consumers, especially those already on the fence about needing a new mattress. The more sales increase, the more McIngvale gets to do the thing he loves most: bask in the attention and fly off to Vegas to place ridiculously large bets, sometimes with a briefcase full of cash. “It’s just like in the movies, the briefcase gets its own seat on the plane,” says Gallery’s Gerald McNeil, a former Pro Bowl returner with the Browns in the 1980s who now works with McIngvale. After the first few spur-of-the-moment trips to Vegas with McIngvale, McNeil started keeping a change of clothes in his car at work. “I guess it’s my job to save the suitcase if the plane goes down,” McNeil says.

Sports gambling is still illegal in Texas, so when he doesn’t feel like jetting to Vegas, McIngvale will simply drive roughly 125 miles east until the betting app on his phone pings to let him know he’s in Louisiana and free to drop another million or five. On the eve of the past Super Bowl, outside a rest stop in Vinton, Louisiana (and on live TV, of course — this is Mattress Mack after all), McIngvale dropped $5 million on the Cincinnati Bengals, the largest Super Bowl bet in history. And this summer, as the Astros caught fire and the promotion exploded — until July, McIngvale was refunding double the customer’s money on mattresses and furniture — McIngvale flew to sportsbooks in Iowa and Vegas to bet another $4 million in a single night.

“I sweat these games because of these promotions and it is so much anxiety,” McIngvale’s wife, Linda, says. “I don’t know how he doesn’t get anxious about it. I think he does and pretends like he doesn’t.”

“My wife says I have a gambling problem,” McIngvale says. “I say I have a promotion problem.”

They’re both probably right.

If the chosen team happens to win, great, McIngvale’s losses are covered, thousands of ecstatic customers blab for years to everyone they know about that time they won the lottery at Gallery Furniture, and many of them turn around and spend the refund on more furniture.

After the Astros won it all in 2017, McIngvale got to live out every gambler’s dream, flying home from Vegas with that raggedy old Astros backpack of his stuffed with almost 50 pounds of the sportsbooks’ money.

If the team loses, well, that’s when McIngvale really wins. For example, last season McIngvale “lost” his $3.35 million wager when the Braves beat the Astros in the World Series. McIngvale pulled out all the stops for that bet, trying to appeal to a higher power by packing a suite at Minute Maid Park with nuns from the Dominican Sisters of Mary Immaculate Province. The sisters became known as the “Rally Nuns” until a 7-0 loss at home to the Braves in a godforsaken Game 6.

It wasn’t quite as soul-shattering a defeat as you’d imagine for McIngvale, though. The odds on that bet covered McIngvale for more than $35 million in freebies. So, assuming the promotion brought in around $30 million in sales (during the fall, no less, which is typically a slow time in the furniture biz), at even a 40% markup, minus his wager, McIngvale confirms that he still came away with a cool profit, probably somewhere close to $9 million. And that’s not even counting the value of all the free advertising, promotion and goodwill that McIngvale says is “exponential,” or the fact that, according to TurboTax, itemized gambling losses can be tax deductible.

“Oh, it’s definitely a win-win,” McIngvale says. “These promotions just bring the brand to life and give us a ton of brand equity that we wouldn’t have otherwise. The customers love it so they’re totally engaged and talk about it for years. Because it runs all season long it probably ups the number of people following the Astros, too, because now they have a real vested interest in the team.”

WHEN McINGVALE WAS a panelist at a gambling conference and trade show in New Jersey this summer, Everson says he heard minor grumblings from bettors about the whole Mattress Mack phenomenon. Mainly, that it’s unfair how McIngvale is allowed to place multimillion-dollar bets while sportsbooks strictly limit what the average person can wager. Besides sounding a lot like airline passengers who blame the awful conditions in economy on the people flying first class, this really is an issue with sportsbooks policy, not McIngvale. One sports gambling industry insider said the reason sportsbooks love McIngvale so much and allow him to keep betting bigger and bigger amounts is all the free promotion they get out of it, and the fact that, well, he’s kinda terrible at it.

During a brutal losing streak in 2022, McIngvale dropped $15.4 million on the Patriots, the Titans, the Bengals and Alabama. He was about to be out another cool $5.5 million in the NCAA tournament until Kansas came back from 16 down at the half to defeat North Carolina. Just before the tip, McIngvale sneaked off to Louisiana to bet another $1 million on Kansas at -190. The wager broke all his rules about taking only underdogs and not gambling with his heart. “Stupid bet,” he says. “I see all these kids when I go to Vegas and it’s the weirdest thing because they all know me from gambling. People think I’m a great handicapper but I’m really not.”

After March Madness, McIngvale brought Jayhawks coach Bill Self into the store for the first day of the $14 million giveaway party. “First customers, a big family, comes up to say thanks to Self and I asked them, ‘How much did y’all win?'” McIngvale says, placing his hand on his forehead. “Sixty-four thousand. Sixty. Four. Thousand. It about knocked me over.”

Another reason the books love McIngvale is what Vegas Insider calls the Mattress Mack effect. McIngvale’s huge wagers on the Astros actually help defray the sportsbooks’ liability on more popular teams like the Yankees and Dodgers, teams that would normally be a loss for casinos. For the record, McIngvale doesn’t like the idea of limits, either. “I think they ought to take bigger bets,” he says. “It’s like if some customer comes in here and wants to spend a million dollars. Well? Knock yourself out. What difference does it make? Yes, the sportsbooks have to hedge it the other way, but they ought to have enough savvy to do that. They’re going to take some big losses, but they’re also going to get some big wins too if they have the numbers right.”

That math will continue to keep people like Fuchs up at night until the Astros are eliminated or sports gambling history is made. Although it’s clear he gets a kick out Mattress Mack, and the promotional mileage of his big bets, Fuchs stops short of rooting for the Astros. “It will be a lot of fun to be on this roller coaster as they progress through the postseason,” he says. “That’s the beauty of Mack’s hedge. It works out for everybody. Well, unless we lose $30 million.”

IN THE END, few things can capture the inexplicable phenomenon that is Mattress Mack better than McIngvale’s Astros game attire. About an hour before the Astros faced the Diamondbacks on Sept. 27, McIngvale shuffled into the mezzanine level of Minute Maid Park by himself, sporting his signature look: well-worn black cowboy boots, a slightly askew orange-billed Astros cap, blue business slacks and an authentic Alex Bregman home white Astros jersey over a white button-down oxford, covered in a galaxy of black dots from the Sharpie McIngvale uses to take notes and sign autographs. McIngvale always completes this ensemble with the single most egregious sports-fashion crime of them all: tucking his game jersey into his pants.

And yet, somehow, on him it works.

Apparently, $70 million in free furniture as an accent piece will do that for an outfit. McIngvale promises that number will keep climbing as long the Astros keep winning, the odds remain favorable and the sportsbooks keep taking his bets. McIngvale is close to several of the Astros, especially Bregman, who shares his passion for racehorses, and he insists the players get a kick out of his promotions and don’t feel the least bit of pressure to help remodel the living rooms of half of Houston.

“This year he’s done it right, and if the Astros win it all it’s so exciting for him and the customers,” Linda McIngvale says. “Mack has this huge connection to the team now, and he loves doing this. … The man works really hard so, you know, it’s all good.”

Mobbed by fans the second he steps into the park, it takes McIngvale an hour to walk along the mezzanine from home plate to right field. And when he does finally reach his seat about 10 rows behind the Houston dugout, Section 122 erupts in a wave of applause. The Astros’ response to McIngvale’s arrival is even more dramatic: three homers in four at-bats to blow the game open in the sixth. “He’s an icon, I love him, he’s Mack to me, not Jim McIngvale,” says Sehgal, the Astros SVP. “He’s just an authentic fan with a really big heart, the kind of person you can’t see without it putting a smile on your face.”

Outside of Houston, McIngvale has quickly become an irresistible storyline as a quirky curiosity in the burgeoning world of mega-sports gambling. Inside this city, though, he remains something completely different and far more impactful. For three straight hours inside Minute Maid Park, fans beam when they recognize Mattress Mack. Some yell out “Legend!” and keep walking to their seats. Others repeat his quirky catch phrase or reveal exactly how much free furniture they won in 2017. A little girl asks him if he’s a ballplayer. A few fans bend his ear for gambling advice on the Texans and Oklahoma State. But the vast majority of people who stop do so to offer some heartfelt variation of the same message: “Thank you for everything you’ve done for this city the last 40 years. Go Stros! Let’s get those free mattresses!”

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Breaking down every conference title game, plus CFP chaos scenarios

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Breaking down every conference title game, plus CFP chaos scenarios

  • Bill ConnellyDec 5, 2025, 07:30 AM ET

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      Bill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.

It took a while for college football to orient itself this season. Three of the top four teams in the preseason AP Top 25 poll started poorly, and only one really recovered. Nine of the preseason top 17 went 8-4 or worse. Meanwhile, some teams that were expected to be good — preseason No. 20 Indiana, No. 21 Ole Miss and No. 23 Texas Tech — turned out to be playoff-caliber dynamite.

Things were pretty messy for a while as the sport figured itself out, but once the hierarchy was established, it was established. Over the past three weeks, teams ranked 14th or higher in the AP poll have gone a combined 35-3, and all three losses were to opponents ranked 16th or higher.

The ACC and the coaching carousel did their best to ensure that there was always something messy and/or chaotic happening, but we’ve reached Championship Week with the balance of power firmly set. Now we get to find out if college football decides to offer one last burst of absolute nonsense. Here’s everything you need to follow during what is likely to be either a very orderly or incredibly fraught Championship Week.

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Championship Week chaos scenarios

This weekend is basically setting up like college football’s version of one of those “We can do this the easy way or the hard way” moments in a mob movie. If Texas Tech and Virginia win as favorites in the Big 12 and ACC championship games, respectively, and if Alabama beats Georgia as it almost always does — since 2017, Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs are 1-7 against the Crimson Tide and 107-8 against everyone else — then college football will have chosen the easy way.

If it unfolds that way, we’ll be able to predict with near certainty who will be in the College Football Playoff. The at-large bids will go to current No. 1 Ohio State or No. 2 Indiana (whichever loses the Big Ten championship game), No. 3 Georgia, No. 5 Oregon, No. 6 Ole Miss, No. 7 Texas A&M, No. 8 Oklahoma and either No. 10 Notre Dame or No. 12 Miami, depending on how much overthinking the playoff committee decides to undertake. Per SP+, however, there’s only a 22% chance we get those three results. And things could get weird if we stray from the script.

(* If No. 11 BYU’s ranking slips, therefore putting Notre Dame and Miami next to each other in the rankings, the committee could decide to move Miami ahead because of the Hurricanes’ head-to-head win. It’s what they tend to do when teams with a head-to-head result end up next to each other. I personally think that win is the only reason Miami deserves to rank even as high as 12th — they have neither played nor beaten any other ranked teams, and they lost to two unranked teams in by far the worst of the power conferences. Notre Dame’s résumé undoubtedly has similar holes, but the committee had many weeks to rank Miami ahead of Notre Dame and didn’t do it, and it would be impossibly silly to do it after a week in which neither team — and only one of their 2025 opponents — played a single game. I’m extremely ready to go back to a BCS-like formula.)

What if BYU beats Texas Tech (23% chance, per SP+)? Last year, Clemson became the first official bid thief of the 12-team playoff era with its win over SMU in the ACC championship game. This year, BYU appears to be the designated thief. The Cougars have lost only to No. 4 Texas Tech and, at 11th, could claim to have been slighted by the committee. They clearly need to win to get in, and if they do, they will likely steal Notre Dame’s (or Miami’s?) ticket. The Fighting Irish, who have won 10 straight games by an average of 43-14, were ranked ninth for three straight weeks before mysteriously slipping to 10th on Tuesday. That puts them in line to get snubbed with a Big 12 upset.

What if BYU wins and Alabama loses (13% chance)? Last season, SMU made the CFP despite losing in the ACC championship game; from that, we derived that the committee had decided not to punish a team for earning a 13th game when others around it in the rankings had not. The Mustangs did fall from eighth to 10th, however. It wasn’t enough to knock them from the playoff field, but they still dropped.

So what will happen if Alabama loses to Georgia, perhaps by a solid margin? Will Bama fall behind Notre Dame? And if BYU has also won … will that mean the Cougars steal the Tide’s bid?

Tuesday’s rankings give us reason to doubt that Bama would move at all, of course. In fact, the only real justification for the Tide jumping Notre Dame this week is that the committee was giving itself a cushion in case of a Bama loss. There is, after all, no universe in which the Tide beating 5-7 Auburn in the last minute was more impressive than Notre Dame beating 4-8 Stanford by 29, and I wouldn’t think that A&M falling from third to seventh would make the Irish’s loss to the Aggies look significantly worse. Regardless, now the committee might not have to worry about eliminating Bama with a bad performance in Atlanta. But what if BYU wins and the Tide lay an absolute egg?

What if Duke wins (32% chance)? BYU aside, Championship Week’s biggest chaos agent is clearly Duke. Manny Diaz’s 7-5 Blue Devils eked out an ACC championship bid thanks to a set of tiebreakers that will almost certainly be redrawn soon. They are only 3.5-point underdogs against Virginia, and a Blue Devils win could give a playoff ticket to a second Group of 5 champion. James Madison would be first in line, though an 11-2 UNLV team will be intriguing if JMU loses and the Rebels finally figure out how to beat Boise State for the Mountain West championship.

Of course, with the lengths the committee went to avoid ranking another G5 team besides Tulane — JMU and North Texas didn’t make it in until this week, and barely at that — Duke itself could still simply hop JMU. The Blue Devils hold about four teams’ playoff hopes in their upset-minded hands.

And before you complain about undeserving teams making the field, this is how playoffs work! Teams with bad records reach the high school playoffs all the time. So do the champions of various lower-budget FCS, Division II or Division III conferences. Four teams with losing records have made the NFL playoffs since 2010. This is the way it should be. We should let more conference champs in, actually.

These are the chaos scenarios to watch for. Now let’s talk about the actual games.

Saturday, 8 p.m., Fox

Back in the BCS days, the people in charge would change the way the computer ratings portion of the BCS formula worked anytime they disagreed with the results. Constantly saying, “I don’t like that, let’s change something” creates a worse process as often as not.

One year into the 12-team playoff era, the college football world declared, “I don’t like that, let’s change something.” When the “top four conference champions receive first-round byes” rule produced odd results in Year 1 — namely, byes going to No. 9 Boise State and No. 12 Arizona State — the title-winner byes were immediately ditched. As a result, we get the most low-consequence No. 1 versus No. 2 December game imaginable. Barring an absolute blowout, Ohio State and Indiana are likely to receive top-four seeds and first-round byes no matter what happens in Indianapolis on Saturday.

Now, Indiana is playing for its first Big Ten title in 58 years; that’s pretty big. Plus, since both quarterbacks, IU’s Fernando Mendoza and OSU’s Julian Sayin, are among the three betting favorites in the Heisman race, it’s hard not to look at this game as a winner-take-all situation for that award. (Root for a defensive slugfest, Diego Pavia!) But this might turn out to be the first of two Hoosiers-Buckeyes games, and the second one will be much bigger.

This one will still be educational, though, and I have two huge questions:

Will Indiana’s offensive line hold up? In 2024, the Hoosiers lost to only the two national title game participants, Ohio State and Notre Dame. In both games, the IU defense mostly held up, but the offense vanished: Whereas the Hoosiers averaged 464 yards in wins, they gained a total of 429 yards in the two losses. Quarterback Kurtis Rourke’s injury limitations didn’t help, but IU running backs averaged only 4.0 yards per carry, and Rourke took eight sacks in 60 pass attempts.

This season, Indiana ranks first in rushing success rate* and a solid 35th in sack rate allowed. Backs Roman Hemby and Kaelon Black keep the Hoosiers on schedule, and Mendoza gets the ball out of his hands quickly. The offense performed well enough against a pair of SP+ top-10 defenses (Iowa and Oregon), but Ohio State’s defense is the best in the country. How well will the Hoosiers hold up, especially up front?

(*Success rate: How frequently an offense is gaining 50% of necessary yardage on first down, 70% on second and 100% on third and fourth.)

Can Ohio State turn on the explosiveness? Ryan Day and coordinator Brian Hartline have created a sturdy offensive structure for maximizing Sayin’s ridiculous accuracy and keeping the redshirt freshman out of awkward downs and distances. The Buckeyes operate with one of the nation’s slowest tempos, and Sayin throws the ball as quickly as possible. He has completed a record 78.9% of his passes, and with a good-not-great run game as a complement, Ohio State ranks second nationally in success and three-and-out rates.

The tradeoff, however, is a major lack of big plays.

The Buckeyes rank just 111th in yards per successful play (11.5), and while we know all about the epic talent of receivers Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate, Sayin very selectively looks deep. That keeps both the negative and big-play counts low.

Big plays are the way to score on Indiana, however. The Hoosiers have allowed only 11 offensive touchdowns this season: Six were from 44 yards or longer, and two more were set up by gains of 40-plus. IU is fifth in success rate allowed and ninth in sack rate — the Hoosiers don’t let you dink and dunk all the way down the field. Can Ohio State create chunk plays without exposing Sayin to hits and mistakes?

Current line: OSU -4 (down from -5.5 at open) | SP+ projection: OSU by 0.9 | FPI projection: IU by 0.1

Saturday, 4 p.m., ABC

If Alabama beats Georgia, we could end up with a situation in which a) the extremely top-heavy Big Ten gets only three CFP teams, but they all get top-four seeds and first-round byes, and b) the SEC gets five teams, but none of them are in the top four. Granted, there’s also a chance that the committee surges Bama up to fourth in this scenario, but based on the season the SEC has had, “five bids and no byes” would be apt. It currently has no top-five teams in the SP+ rankings, but it still has seven of the top 13 and, comfortably, the best average rating.

Of course, for all the talk of parity within this conference, we’re getting our fourth Bama-Georgia title game in eight years, and a Georgia win — the Dawgs are favored — will be its third title in four years. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose and whatnot.

Writing about Alabama this season has been a strange experience. The Crimson Tide have mostly been “little things” masters, owning the red zone on both ends, winning the field position and turnover battles and closing games out beautifully, going 4-1 in one-score games. But they have also only rarely looked dominant despite the legion of former blue-chippers on their roster. They’ve ranked between ninth and 12th in SP+ for the past seven weeks, and in that span, they’ve played almost precisely to projections (which suggests that the ranking is pretty accurate).

They beat Georgia 10 weeks ago, however, and that brings them back to Atlanta to face a Georgia team that … has rarely dominated despite the legion of former blue-chippers on their roster. The Dawgs are also 4-1 in one-score finishes, and while they had to lean heavily on offense early in the season — they beat Tennessee 44-41 and beat Ole Miss 43-35 — they’ve allowed just 22 total points in their past three games, a run that includes their one truly resounding performance, a 35-10 blowout of Texas.

In the teams’ first meeting, two major habits came to bear. Alabama, which ranks eighth nationally in points per drive in the first half (and only 33rd in the second), bolted to a 14-0 lead and led 24-14 at halftime. In the second half, however, Georgia took control, tilting the field and creating a pair of red zone opportunities to Bama’s zero. A fourth-down stop in the fourth quarter, however, made the difference in a 24-21 Tide win. For the game, the Dawgs averaged 6.7 yards per play to Bama’s 5.2, but the Tide won 19 of 27 total third downs and finished plus-1 in turnovers. That was just enough.

This was one of five games in which Georgia took snaps while trailing in the second half. It was the only one the Dawgs didn’t win. For whatever their upside might be this year, there’s never going to be any question about their ability to brawl for 60 full minutes.

Georgia’s defense has rounded into form of late, but the Dawgs still face an awkward matchup with the Tide offense, in that it defends the run far better than the pass and Bama is happy to abandon the run and put the game in Ty Simpson‘s hands. Regardless, the early going will be huge: Georgia is more experienced and more effective at playing from behind. And if you’re rooting for the “What happens if Bama gets genuinely thumped?” scenario, Georgia going up early is an obvious step one.

Current line: UGA -2.5 | SP+ projection: UGA by 2.8 | FPI projection: Bama by 0.3

Saturday, noon, ABC

I don’t think we’ve talked enough about how good Texas Tech is this season. I mean, everyone knows the Red Raiders are good — they’re 11-1, they’re fourth in the CFP rankings and defenders Jacob Rodriguez and David Bailey are surefire All-Americans. They aren’t exactly flying under the radar. But while SP+ has locked in pretty well on most teams, it continues to underestimate Tech’s capabilities, even while ranking it third nationally. The Red Raiders overachieved against projections by an average of 14.0 points in November, winning four games (including one against BYU) by an average of 42-9. In fact, the only time they’ve really underachieved all season was in their 26-22 loss to Arizona State, when they were without starting quarterback Behren Morton. They even managed to overachieve in three other partial or whole games without Morton. This is a scary team.

BYU has all the motivation in this one, however, knowing that its playoff hopes are now fully win or bust. (The Cougars might also get an “Our head coach just chose us over Penn State” boost.) Will that make a difference? Or is Tech just too damn good?

BYU’s defense played brilliantly in the teams’ first meeting, a 29-7 Tech win on Nov. 8. The Cougars held Tech to just a 33.3% success rate, 13 percentage points below its season average, and allowed the Red Raiders just two touchdowns in seven red zone trips. The score was only 13-0 at halftime, and wasted opportunities made it seem like Tech could be vulnerable to a comeback, but the BYU offense just couldn’t deliver. For just about the only time all season, BYU’s Bear Bachmeier looked like the true freshman he is, throwing for just 188 yards at 4.5 yards per dropback and losing an interception and fumble. Given enough opportunities, Tech finally put the game away.

An upset will require the same high level of defensive play and far better execution on offense. Having running back LJ Martin at full strength will help — Martin was hurt the week before the first matchup and gained just 35 yards in 10 carries against Tech. His 222-yard performance two weeks ago against Cincinnati suggests he’s playing at a high level, and BYU should get another couple of recently banged-up starters back as well. But we just don’t know what exactly will beat the Tech defense because almost nothing has.

The Red Raiders have given up more than 17 points just twice all season and only allowed one team, Kansas State, to top 4.8 yards per play (the Wildcats averaged a still pedestrian 5.2). BYU might be able to hold Tech under 28 points with another strong effort, but it might take the best performance of Bachmeier’s life to hit 28 or more.

Current line: Tech -12.5 | SP+ projection: Tech by 11.7 | FPI projection: Tech by 4.3

Saturday, 8 p.m., ABC

As fun as it’s been to envision wild scenarios that might unfold if Duke wins the ACC, Virginia could put an end to all of this creativity by simply repeating what happened the last time the Cavaliers met the Blue Devils. Three weeks ago, they put together probably their most complete performance of the season in a 34-17 romp.

Success rate: Virginia 40.3%, Duke 31.0%
Yards per play: Virginia 7.0, Duke 4.4
Field position margin: Virginia plus-6.7 per drive
Third downs: Virginia 12-19, Duke 4-15
Sacks: Virginia 4, Duke 0
Turnovers: Virginia 2, Duke 1

UVA played far more efficient ball than the Blue Devils, enjoyed eight gains of 20-plus yards to Duke’s three and won 23 of 34 total third downs (67%). The only reason the game finished as close as 17 points was because of two Hoos turnovers, one of which was a pick-six.

Virginia has been the better team in 2025, but these teams’ first game was a bit of an outlier. UVA’s seasonlong averages aren’t quite as advantageous, and Duke’s offense has been especially strong down the stretch. The Blue Devils have scored more than 30 points in four of the past five games (UVA being the exception), and Darian Mensah finished the regular season first in the ACC in passing yards and third in Total QBR.

Mensah has been a high-volume, high-accuracy playmaker, and Duke has improved from 71st to 23rd in offensive SP+ in a single season.

Unfortunately for Duke, the defense has fallen from 31st to 91st. Against seven top-60 offenses this season, including Virginia’s, Duke allowed 36.4 points per game. Virginia’s offensive production trailed off over the back half of the season, but the Hoos still torched the Blue Devils: Chandler Morris threw for 316 yards, Trell Harris caught eight balls for 161 yards and J’Mari Taylor rushed for 133 yards in 18 carries.

Mensah and receivers Cooper Barkate and Que’Sean Brown torched Clemson and Wake Forest — defenses that grade out about as well as UVA’s — and Duke could absolutely turn this into a track meet. But Virginia probably has the advantage in a track meet too.

Current line: UVA -3.5 | SP+ projection: UVA by 7.3 | FPI projection: UVA by 1.5

Friday, 8 p.m., ABC

With four of five Group of 5 title games taking place Friday night, we’ll have a clear view of the stakes of Virginia-Duke by Saturday morning. But it’s safe to assume that the winner of this game, pitting two ranked teams with soon-departing head coaches (UNT’s Oklahoma State-bound Eric Morris and Tulane’s Florida-bound Jon Sumrall) in potentially very rainy conditions, is in.

For all of the money being thrown around to stars in today’s college football landscape, the best offense in the country, per SP+, was crafted in Denton, Texas, and features a true freshman (RB Caleb Hawkins), a redshirt freshman who didn’t start in high school (QB Drew Mestemaker) and transfers from Kent State, Abilene Christian, Shepherd University and the now-closed Limestone University. North Texas is averaging 46.8 points and 511.8 yards; the Mean Green have topped 50 points seven times and even scored 36 in their lone loss.

The Mean Green’s schedule, however, has lacked. They’ve played only one team currently ranked higher than 57th in SP+ (South Florida), and they lost to the Bulls by 27 points. Granted, that margin was mostly due to the worst middle eight of all time — USF went on a 28-0 run between the 0:02 mark of the second quarter and 11:35 of the third — but it still counts, and UNT hasn’t had another chance to prove itself against a particularly good opponent.

Tulane is good. Granted, the Green Wave have allowed 38.5 points per game and 7.1 yards per play to the only two top-20 offenses they’ve faced. But they’re improving on D — they solidly overachieved against defensive projections down the stretch — and they have an offense that can keep up in a track meet: They’re 10th nationally in passing success rate, with Jake Retzlaff combining 2,717 passing yards with a solid 621 non-sack rushing yards.

Neither of these defenses is amazing, but neither gives up a ton of big plays either. This one will probably come down to which defense allows the fewest big shots and easy points

Current line: UNT -2.5 | SP+ projection: UNT by 8.2 | FPI projection: UNT by 2.0

Friday, 7 p.m., ESPN

Troy has reached the Sun Belt championship game through sheer perseverance. Gerad Parker’s Trojans won three straight wild one-score games early in the season. They also overcame an early-season QB injury, with Tucker Kilcrease filling in for Goose Crowder, who is back in the lineup and slinging the ball around well. Good pass defense and random offensive spurts have given them a chance at a third Sun Belt title in four years.

The odds, of course, aren’t great. JMU did lose four times as a favorite last year, and distractions can always strike when your coach is leaving, but Troy is a three-touchdown underdog, and JMU will be hunting for style points in super-chilly Harrisonburg.

JMU’s defense ranks first in success rate allowed and has allowed more than 5.1 yards per play just once all season. They boast difference-makers at each level, from defensive ends Sahir West and Aiden Gobaira up front to safety Jacob Thomas in the back. The offense was surprisingly inconsistent early in 2025 but ignited against Old Dominion and hasn’t looked back: In their past six games, the Dukes have averaged 48.5 points and 7.4 yards per play. Alonza Barnett is 14th nationally in Total QBR in that span, distributing the ball beautifully to five different pass catchers.

The only close call JMU has suffered since the offensive ignition came against Washington State: The Cougars kept the tempo at a crawl, won third and fourth downs and limited the Dukes to just 50 snaps. It still didn’t work — JMU scored on two long second-half touchdowns and won 24-20. But if Troy pulls a scare, it will be from a similar recipe. The Trojans can land some shots defensively, and they’re pretty good on third down and willing on fourth. But the margin for error here is minimal.

Current line: JMU -23.5 (up from -21.5) | SP+ projection: JMU by 20.2 | FPI projection: JMU by 18.4

Friday, 8 p.m., Fox

Since the start of 2023, UNLV is 30-10 overall, an incredible run for a program with minimal historical success. The Rebels have gone 5-3 against power conference programs in that span, and they’re 18-7 in the Mountain West. Just imagine how great things might be if they could actually beat Boise State: The Rebels are 0-4 against the Broncos in this span, including losses in back-to-back MWC championship games. If momentum means anything in this sport, however — I often doubt it does — and the Rebels can adapt to cold and rainy conditions in Boise, the timing might finally be right.

Five weeks ago, this matchup seemed unlikely. UNLV had lost two straight games, giving up 96 combined points to Boise State and New Mexico and falling to 123rd in defensive SP+. BSU, meanwhile, had just lost quarterback Maddux Madsen to injury and had fallen 30-7 to Fresno State. The Broncos would lose to San Diego State in their next game, too.

BSU quarterback Max Cutforth found his footing, however, and helped to lead a blowout of Colorado State and a comeback win at Utah State. UNLV, meanwhile, suddenly found a defense and beat its past four conference opponents by an average of 38-16. The Rebels have looked so good that they rose from 71st to 41st in SP+ in just four weeks.

Madsen, who is scheduled to return Friday, threw for 253 yards and four touchdowns in BSU’s 56-31 win over UNLV in Week 8, while Dylan Riley rushed for 201 yards in just 15 carries. Even in the Rebels’ improved state, they still aren’t defending the run well. UNLV can keep up in most track meets, and holding the Broncos under 35 will give it a chance. But that might not be guaranteed.

Current line: BSU -4.5 (up from -1.5) | SP+ projection: UNLV by 0.4 | FPI projection: BSU by 4.0

Friday, 7 p.m., CBSSN

For the second straight season, a second-year FBS program will play for the CUSA title. Last year, second-year Jacksonville State wiped the floor with Western Kentucky; now Kennesaw State gives it a go against the champs.

Jerry Mack’s first KSU team has found success by raising its floor: The Owls don’t rank high in many of the categories I track, but they’re also near the bottom in almost none. They defend the run well — linebacker Baron Hopson is ridiculously good in this department — they hit on some deep passes to Gabriel Benyard and Christian Moss, and they wait for you to make mistakes.

JSU lost a ton from last year’s conference title squad, but after a wobbly 3-3 start, the Gamecocks found an offensive rhythm by running the hell out of the ball: Cam Cook has rushed for 1,588 yards, and not including sacks, quarterback Caden Creel has added 1,008. The defense is decent but clutch offensive play has allowed the Gamecocks to win six of seven games despite five finishing within one score.

These two met three weeks ago in a game decided by big plays and turnovers. Jax State scored on a second-quarter Hail Mary, Creel produced completions of 50 and 52 yards (plus a 40-yard rush), and the Gamecocks picked off three passes in the red zone in a 35-26 win. None of that’s particularly sustainable, though, especially since KSU has been the better overall red zone team in 2025.

Current line: KSU -2.5 (flipped from JSU -1.5) | SP+ projection: KSU by 1.4 | FPI projection: KSU by 0.3

Saturday, noon, ESPN

Miami is playing in the MAC championship game for the third straight season — the Redhawks won in 2023 and lost last year — while WMU is enjoying its best campaign, and first title game appearance, since 2016.

Chuck Martin’s Redhawks lost basically every offensive starter and half the defense after last season and landed only a few major contributors from the transfer portal. But they got rolling after an 0-3 start, and when quarterback Dequan Finn left the program in November, redshirt freshman Thomas Gotkowski took over and led comfortable wins over Buffalo and Ball State.

WMU also started 0-3, but the Broncos have since won eight of nine — losing only to Miami, in fact. Thanks in part to otherworldly outside linebacker Nadame Tucker (18.5 TFLs, 12 sacks, 4 forced fumbles), their defense ranks 46th in defensive SP+, their highest ranking since 2000.

Miami turned the tables late in their Week 9 matchup. WMU took a 17-9 lead into the fourth quarter, but the Redhawks outgained the Broncos 160-61 in the fourth, forced a turnover and finished the game on a 17-0 run. Gotkowski has gotten away with mostly quick passes to the sideline, but the Redhawks might need him to ramp up the playmaking to maintain their Week 9 advantages. Otherwise WMU could seize its first title in nine years.

Current line: WMU -2.5 | SP+ projection: Miami by 1.2 | FPI projection: WMU by 0.2

Smaller-school showcase

Let’s once again save a shout-out for the glorious lower levels of the sport. The smaller-school playoffs are hitting top speed, so here’s a game you should track at each level.

Division II quarterfinals: No. 16 Newberry at No. 13 Albany State (ESPN+, 1 p.m.). The Division II quarterfinals feature projected blowout wins for the three best teams — Ferris State, Harding and Kutztown — but the last semifinal spot will go to one of two upstarts.

Both Albany State and Newberry are seeking their first D-II semifinal appearance. ASU is the projected favorite because of defensive end Derrick Drayton and a defense that allows just 13.3 points per game. Newberry, however, just upset No. 4 West Florida thanks to 416 passing yards and two touchdowns from quarterback Reed Charpia. Do the Wolves have another upset in them?

SP+ projection: Albany State by 7.3

Division III round of 16: No. 6 Saint John’s (Minn.) at No. 4 Wisconsin-River Falls (1 p.m., ESPN+). Saint John’s has been to only one semifinal since winning the 2003 D-III national title, but the Johnnies are flying thanks to quarterback Trey Feeney and an offense averaging 50.4 points per game. UWRF, meanwhile, is looking for its first quarterfinal appearance in 30 years, and Kaleb Blaha and the Falcons also wing the ball around like crazy and score lots of points (47.5 PPG)! Track meet in River Falls!

SP+ projection: Johnnies by 1.4

NAIA quarterfinals: No. 7 Lindsey Wilson at No. 1 Grand View (1 p.m., local streaming). It’s the No. 1 team in the NAIA polls vs. the No. 1 team in NAIA SP+. Grand View is NAIA’s standard bearer; the Vikings are the defending national champions and have gone a cool 83-5 since 2019. The defense allows 8.4 points per game thanks to ace pass rusher Jackson Filer (23 TFLs, 11 sacks). But Lindsey Wilson is scoring 44.8 points per game with absurd run-pass balance. And there’s a chance of afternoon snow in Des Moines!

SP+ projection: LWU by 1.5

FCS round of 16: No. 18 South Dakota State at No. 4 Montana (2 p.m., ESPN+). So is South Dakota State suddenly South Dakota State again? The Jackrabbits needed a miracle finish against North Dakota to assure themselves a spot in the playoffs, but with quarterback Chase Mason healthy and back in the lineup, they crushed New Hampshire 41-3 in last week’s first round. Mason’s in-season injury might end up being Montana’s misfortune — SDSU is unbeaten when he starts, and now the Grizzlies have to beat the Jacks just to reach the quarterfinals. Luckily they have quarterback Keali’i Ah Yat and a pretty fantastic offense themselves.

SP+ projection: Montana by 5.6

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How the conference championship results affect the playoff: Tulane finishes the job

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December 6, 2025

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How the conference championship results affect the playoff: Tulane finishes the job

GRAPEVINE, Texas – Welcome to the College Football Playoff, Tulane.

The No. 20 Green Wave dismantled No. 24 North Texas, providing the selection committee with its first answer of conference championship weekend.

The committee gathered Friday night at its headquarters in the Gaylord Texan resort to watch Group of 5 conference championship games that will impact its final ranking on Selection Day. It was only the beginning of conference championship weekend, but how these games unfolded with the committee watching will determine its five highest-ranked conference champions — and how that order will impact the contenders around them.

Here’s an early look at what Friday night’s results meant to the playoff race, starting with the Sun Belt and the American Conference.

Tulane 34, North Texas 21

With Tulane’s win against North Texas, the American champs locked up a spot in the playoff, as they will be the committee’s fourth-highest ranked conference champion. The Green Wave will earn the No. 11 seed and face the committee’s No. 6 team on the road in the first round. If the committee keeps Ole Miss at No. 6, Tulane will get a rematch against the Rebels. Ole Miss beat Tulane 45-10 on Sept. 20 in Oxford and will have home-field advantage again as the higher seed.

James Madison 31, Troy 14

With Friday’s win against Troy, JMU‘s path to the playoff is straightforward: Duke needs to beat Virginia and win the ACC. If that happens, the committee will reward JMU with the No. 12 seed as its fifth and final conference champion — and it would come at the expense of the ACC champion, which would be excluded. The question is if the conference will be excluded entirely, though — or if No. 12 Miami will still sneak in, even without playing this weekend. That could happen if BYU loses to Texas Tech in the Big 12 title game and drops behind Miami — putting the Canes right below No. 10 Notre Dame. In that scenario, the committee could look at Miami’s season-opening win against the Irish as one of several tiebreakers it uses to separate comparable teams.

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Diaz: Blue Devils rightfully in ACC title game

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December 6, 2025

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Diaz: Blue Devils rightfully in ACC title game

  • Andrea AdelsonDec 5, 2025, 05:11 PM ET

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    • ACC reporter.
    • Joined ESPN.com in 2010.
    • Graduate of the University of Florida.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Duke coach Manny Diaz says his team has embraced all the doomsday scenarios that have been laid out this week as his 7-5 team prepares to play No. 17 Virginia in the ACC championship game.

If Duke wins the game, there is the possibility the ACC champion would get left out of the 12-team College Football Playoff, as three Group of 5 teams are ranked higher than the Blue Devils. No. 24 North Texas and No. 20 Tulane play in the American title game, while No. 25 James Madison plays Troy in the Sun Belt title game, both on Friday.

“We love it, doomsday scenario and nightmares and this and that the other,” Diaz said. “Our guys deserve to be here. That’s the first thing. There’s a notion that we won a scratch-off lottery-ticket-type deal to get here. We won by the most objective metric possible. We won the second-most games in the league, and everyone else who won the same amount of games that we won, we had the hardest schedule.

“We complain all the time about the subjectivity in college football and rankings and committees and whatnot, and this is the most objective way to determine who the champions are, and the two teams are here that deserve to be here. We’re one of them.”

Duke finished in a five-way tie in the ACC at 6-2. One of the teams that finished in that tie was No. 12 Miami (10-2), a team on the bubble for an at-large CFP berth. The Blue Devils won the fifth tiebreaker, which was conference opponent win percentage. Miami coach Dan Radakovich said earlier in the week the ACC should revisit its championship game tiebreaker policy to ensure the league was putting its “best foot forward.”

Diaz noted his team finished plus-16 in turnover margin in conference games, one of the biggest reasons it is in Charlotte.

The two teams met earlier in November, with Virginia winning 34-17. The top five conference champions are guaranteed a spot in the CFP, regardless of conference. Duke lost three nonconference games, including two on the road to teams outside the Power 4 — at Tulane and at UConn.

Diaz has remained adamant that despite seeing three Group of 5 teams ranked, if his team wins the ACC, it deserves to make the field.

He also noted the point spread in the Big Ten title game between Indiana and Ohio State is the same as the point spread in the ACC title game. Ohio State and Virginia are each favored by 4.

“Those guys in Vegas, they tend to know things,” Diaz said. “No one’s talking about how Indiana doesn’t deserve to be in the Big Ten championship game, because, of course, they do. And I think Duke deserves to be here the same exact way.”

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