The College Football Playoff‘s inaugural 2025 poll was released on Tuesday night, November 4th, to much fanfare. It’s every fan’s first chance to see what the College Football Playoff committee thinks of their team. The first rankings of the season aired on ESPN and the ESPN app.
In the Big 12 Conference, four teams were ranked in the first College Football Playoff poll of the 2025 season.
BYU is the highest-ranked team in the conference at No. 7 in the country, while Texas Tech is ranked No. 8, and then Utah comes in at No. 13. That’s three Big 12 teams in the Top 15 in the country.
Ohio State is the No. 1 team in the first rankings released Tuesday by the College Football Playoff selection committee, topping fellow unbeatens Indiana at No. 2 and Texas A&M at No. 3.
Three SEC teams followed the Aggies, with Alabama at No. 4, Georgia at No. 5 and Ole Miss at No. 6.
The five highest-ranked conference champions will make the 12-team field, but there is a tweak to the format this year as the committee is using a straight seeding model. The top four teams in the final ranking, regardless of conference championship, will receive a first-round bye.
The SEC led the way with nine teams ranked in the Top 25, while the Big Ten had seven, the ACC had five and the Big 12 had three.
The four first-round games will be played at the home campus of the higher-seeded teams on December 19th and 20th. The four quarterfinal games will be played at the Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl on December 31st and January 1st.
The two semifinal games will take place at the Fiesta Bowl and Peach Bowl on January 8th and 9th. The CFP National Championship is scheduled for Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
Week 11 Big 12 Schedule
There is a huge game this weekend in the Big 12, with Texas Tech hosting BYU, in a game that will feature ESPN’s College GameDay in Lubbock on Saturday morning. With the Cougars as the only undefeated team left in the league, they are in the driver’s seat for a Big 12 Championship Game appearance. But they head to Lubbock as a huge underdog this weekend, with most sportsbooks putting the Red Raiders as a 10-point favorite.
The rest of the schedule includes a Friday night match up between Houston and UCF, with the Cougars trying to bounce back from a rough loss at home to West Virginia last week, while the Knights are also coming off a 30-3 blowout to Baylor.
Saturday has two other 11:00 a.m. CT games, along with Tech vs. BYU, as West Virginia hosts Colorado and Oklahoma State welcomes in K-State. In the 2:30 CT time slot it’s Arizona hosting Kansas and TCU playing Iowa State.
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