Saturday Down South bowl projections are officially back for the 2025 season.
Well, momentarily, at least. Because college football is unpredictable and we want to give a fair look at what the bowl landscape will look like, we’ll give a baseline pre-Week 1 projection before taking a break to survey the field. Then, we’ll be back later in the season with weekly updates, every Monday.
To start off, let’s address the CFP format for 2025 as there’s an especially important change to note right off the bat. Despite the fact that the top 5 conference champions will still be awarded auto-bids as they were last year, the top 4 of those 5 conference champions will not be guaranteed a first-round bye. Seeds 1-4 will simply be determined by their CFP ranking at the end of the season. Pretty straightforward.
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.
The 2025 projections start with 4 SEC teams in the Playoff: Alabama (first-round bye, SEC Champion), Georgia, LSU and Texas. Just missing the cut are Ole Miss, South Carolina and Florida — but they’re not behind by much. It’s tough to predict who is truly capable of putting together a Playoff résumé before the season starts — ask Arizona State, SMU and Indiana if you’re curious why — but for now I’m eyeing those 7 as preseason Playoff contenders from the SEC.
Every game is crucial, obviously, but here are a few I’m circling as it pertains to importance for Playoff seeding:
- Week 4: LSU at Ole Miss
- Week 7: South Carolina at LSU
- Week 10: Florida vs. Georgia (Jacksonville), South Carolina at Ole Miss
- Week 12: Florida at Ole Miss
Ole Miss is super intriguing because it gets all 3 of these swing games at home — most notably Week 4 against LSU. Lane Kiffin and Co. have a simply massive opportunity in front of them this season.
All SEC teams apart from Mississippi State and Kentucky are projected to reach 6 wins this season, though I had serious pause surrounding Auburn‘s final record. There’s absolutely a world where the Tigers crash and burn early, but the schedule evens out late in the year and there’s just too much talent on this roster for me to believe Freeze can ruin it so spectacularly and finish under .500 again. It’ll be close though; I’ve got the Tigers going 6-6 on the nose.
Let’s get into it.
College Football Playoff
Rose Bowl: Penn State vs. 8/9 winner
Sugar Bowl: Alabama vs. 7/10 winner
Cotton Bowl: Notre Dame vs. 6/11 winner
Orange Bowl: Clemson vs. 5/12 winner
First Round
From Columbus, Ohio: No. 5 Ohio State vs. No. 12 Tulane
From Athens, Georgia: No. 6 Georgia vs. No. 11 Illinois
From Eugene, Oregon: No. 7 Oregon vs. No. 10 Utah
From Baton Rouge, Louisiana: No. 8 LSU vs. No. 9 Texas
The Rest
Citrus Bowl: Ole Miss vs. Michigan
ReliaQuest Bowl: South Carolina vs. SMU
Gator Bowl: Florida vs. Georgia Tech
Texas Bowl: Texas A&M vs. Texas Tech
Music City Bowl: Mizzou vs. Nebraska
Mayo Bowl: Tennessee vs. Florida State
Liberty Bowl: Oklahoma vs. Kansas State
Gasparilla Bowl: Vanderbilt vs. Memphis
Birmingham Bowl: Auburn vs. Navy
First Responder Bowl: Arkansas vs. Syracuse
Ethan Stone is a Tennessee graduate and loves all things college football and college basketball. Firm believer in fouling while up 3.
