Acme Packing Company
We’ve already had one top-25 upset this week, with #20 Louisville falling to Clemson on Friday night. The ACC is currently in absolute chaos, as each of Georgia Tech, Virginia, SMU, Pittsburgh and Duke all have only one loss at the top of the conference. Yes, 5-4 Duke is 4-1 in the ACC. There’s a slim chance that the ACC is left out of the playoff entirely in 2025.
Beyond just the ACC, though, there should be some good games on the college football slate this week. Below are the top-25 matchups on Saturday.
According to ESPN’s Football Power Index, Notre Dame is the two-loss team with the best chance of making the college football playoff with a 57.5 percent chance. Their two losses to start the season were against the Miami Hurricanes and Texas A&M Aggies, both top-15 teams, and the combined margin was just 4 points in those games. Since then, the Fighting Irish have won every other game they’ve played this year by at least 10 points.
Obviously, a loss to the Pittsburgh Panthers would be brutal for the Irish’s playoff odds, as this is the last hurdle for Notre Dame to clear. They end the season against Syracuse and Stanford, one of the worst programs in the Power 4 in 2025, after this matchup.
But the Panthers have stakes in this game, too, as they sit at 7-2 and 5-1 in conference play. With the Louisville Cardinals on Friday, their chances of getting to go to Charlotte for the ACC Championship will shoot through the roof if they can beat Notre Dame in this one.
The Oklahoma Sooners are fighting for their playoff lives. Currently, even though they’re 7-2, they only have a 23.6 percent chance of making the playoff, which ranks 17th in the FBS this year. Some of that is probably factoring in a likely loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide this week, plus the fact that Oklahoma ends the season against the Missouri Tigers, who have been in and out of the top-25 this year, and the LSU Tigers.
Speaking of Alabama, they’ve basically punched in their card for the postseason dance. They have a 95.7 percent chance of making the playoff, third best behind just Ohio State and Indiana. ESPN gives them a better than 50 percent chance of winning the SEC, more than double the credit that they’re giving Texas A&M, which is currently undefeated at 9-0.
Alabama gets the FCS’s Eastern Illinois next week, a 3-7 team, before playing Auburn, which has already fired its head coach and is 1-6 in SEC play, to end the regular season. If the Tide wins out, that probably means that we’re going to see an A&M-Bama matchup in Atlanta for the SEC title.
Both of these teams are on the...
