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SEC Bowl Projections after Week 13: Where each team stands before Rivalry Week

Published: Nov 25, 2025 · 9:00 AM EST

Rivalry Week is here, and the final regular-season slate is magnificent.

Of course, there’s The Game and Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate to take note of, but for our purposes there are 4 especially interesting matchups on the docket for Week 14. We mentioned one a few weeks back: Vanderbilt at Tennessee.

The Commodores currently hold a 21% chance to reach the Playoff according to ESPN’s FPI, and I’d say that sounds about right. Oklahoma beating Alabama was just a devastating result for the Commodores, especially while BYU and Utah just keep winning over in the Big 12. Still, as you can bet Clark Lea is telling his team, the Commodores need to focus on controlling what they can control.

Tennessee molly-whopped Florida last week in The Swamp, and the Vols are looking to remove all doubt by taking their in-state rival out of the race entirely. I’ve favored Vanderbilt in this matchup for about 5 weeks now, but if the Vols come out of the gate like they did against Florida, Vanderbilt could be in trouble. Either way, as I mentioned after Week 10, we going to be in for an excellent ballgame in Knoxville.

A quick note on Tennessee: The Vols have jumped LSU and are now projected to play in the Gator Bowl with Mizzou’s loss and LSU’s… current state of affairs.

Let’s get to the other 3 matchups of note: The Iron Bowl, the Egg Bowl and… the Governor’s Cup? Bear with me here.

Auburn, Mississippi State and Kentucky are all fighting for bowl eligibility this week. And as we all know, you can throw records out of the window when it comes to these Week 14 matchups. Auburn is going to give Alabama everything it has, like it does every year. You could bet your mortgage on seeing the same effort from Kentucky and Mississippi State.

Because it’s Rivalry Week and chaos always reigns supreme in this sport, I refuse to believe all 3 of the 5-6 SEC teams will lose. That’s why Kentucky is now in the bowl projections listed below. The Wildcats face a Louisville team that appears to have given up on the season entirely. The Cardinals are currently in the middle of a 3-game losing streak, and their latest loss was a 32-point spanking by the hand of SMU.

As you can see, the Playoff projections haven’t changed much from last week — only some light reshuffling to account for Oregon’s impressive win over USC. Also, SMU has overtaken Georgia Tech for the ACC’s Playoff spot.

We’re in for a treat this weekend. Take it all in, folks.

College Football Playoff

We’ll leave this here for anyone not familiar with the current CFP format for 2025-26:

The top 5 conference champions will be awarded auto-bids, as they were last year. However, unlike last year, the top 4 of those 5 conference champions will not be guaranteed a first-round bye. Seeds 1-4 are simply be determined by their CFP ranking at the end of the season.
This year’s quarterfinal matchups feature the Rose, Sugar, Cotton and Orange Bowls, with the Peach Bowl and Fiesta Bowl as semifinal hosts. As with last season, first-round matchups (Seeds 5-12) will be hosted by the higher-ranked team on campus.

Rose Bowl: Ohio State vs. 8/9 winner

Sugar Bowl: Texas A&M vs. 7/10 winner

Orange Bowl: Indiana vs. 6/11 winner

Cotton Bowl: Georgia vs. 5/12 winner