2025 College Football Analysis, Part Four: The SEC, ACC, and Big 12

So far in this year's math-driven college football preview, we have reviewed the results from 2024, taken a close look at the schedule for the Michigan State Spartans, and analyzed several scenarios in the Big Ten race.

In today's installment, let's take a quick look at the races in the other three power conferences and make some predictions as to which teams like earn automatic bids to the 12-team college football playoff.

SEC Overview and Prediction

Similar to the analysis done for the Big Ten, Table 1 below shows the detailed results of my preseason simulation of the SEC race, including the consensus preseason rank of each team, two sets of projected final records, strength of schedule data, and the odds for each team to make and win the SEC Championship Game and to make and win the new 12-team playoff.

Table 1:  Summary of the preseason projections for the SEC conference, based on the consensus preseason rankings and a 50,000 cycle Monte Carlo simulation of the full college football season.

The SEC is once again considered to be the top conference in the nation. Four of the top 10 teams in the preseason are from the SEC (No. 1 Texas, No. 4 Alabama, No. 5 Georgia, and No. 9 LSU). An addition six teams are ranked from No. 11 to No. 18 (No. 11 Florida, No. 13 Oklahoma, No. 14 Texas A&M, No. 15 South Carolina, No. 16 Mississippi, and No. 18 Tennessee). SEC teams up exactly half of the preseason top 20.

Predicted which team will eventually win the SEC in 2025 is no easy task. The top 10 teams all have between a 10% and 35% chance to reach the SEC Championship Game. There are at least three different ways to look at the SEC race.

Based on the raw simulation results, the two highest ranked teams in preseason, No. 1 Texas and No. 4 Alabama, have the best overall odds to reach the conference title game. But the records projected by the "most likely" and "disruptive" scenarios paint a different picture.

Just like my analysis of the Big Ten, the most likely scenario in the one where the projected favorite wins every conference game. If this were to happen, No. 5 Georgia would be the only SEC team to run the table. The Bulldogs would secure wins over No. 1 Texas, No. 4 Alabama, and No. 16 Ole Miss at home and No. 11 Florida, No. 18 Tennessee, and No. 23 Auburn on the road.

In this scenario, Texas and Alabama end the season in a tie at 7-1, with both losses coming on the road at Georgia. The tiebreaker would likely come down to the cumulative conference record of each teams' set of conference opponents. In this case, Alabama is poised to win the tiebreaker by virtue of a much tougher conference strength of schedule (No .6) compared to the Longhorns (No. 16).

In the disruptive scenario, the conference race plays out quite a bit differently. This scenario is designed to inject a historically reasonable number of road upsets into the analysis. Practically, especially in the SEC, this tends to result in a bloodbath where all of the ranked teams beat up on each other. But the results of the exercise are still informative.

As Table 1 shows, the disruptive scenario predicts a three-way tie for first place between Texas (6-2 with losses at Georgia and at Florida), Mississippi (6-2 with loses at Georgia and at Oklahoma), and Tennessee (6-2 with loses at Alabama and at Florida). A total of six SEC teams end up tied for fourth place with 5-3 conference records: Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Florida, Texas A&M, and Auburn.

In this hypothetical three-way tie, Tennessee and Ole Miss would meet in the SEC Championship Game where my model predicts a one-point win by the Rebels. For this reason, I am forecasting that Ole Miss will be the surprise winner of the SEC.

Not coincidentally, the three teams that my disruptive simulation have selected to share the regular season title have three of the four easiest conference schedules. That said, the eventually SEC Champion will likely get there most likely by protecting their home field and by stealing a win or avoiding upsets on the road.

Based on this assumption, here is a list of the most likely high impact SEC conference games this season which my projected point spreads. The projected road upsets in the disruptive scenario are shown in italics: 

• 9/13 Florida at LSU (-4.8)
• 9/13 Georgia at Tennessee (+3.5)
• 9/20 South Carolina at Missouri (+2.2)
• 9/27 Alabama at Georgia (-3.0)
• 9/27 LSU at Ole Miss (+0.1)
• 10/4 Texas at Florida (+2.5)
• 10/11 Florida at Texas A&M (-2.0)
• 10/11 Georgia at Auburn (+5.8)
• 10/18 Ole Miss at Georgia (-9.8)
• 10/25: Alabama at South Carolina (+2.6)
• 11/1 Florida vs. Georgia (-1.7)
• 11/1 Ole Miss at Oklahoma (-5.2)
• 11/8 Texas A&M at Missouri (+2.7)
• 11/8 LSU at Alabama (-6.7)
• 11/15 Florida at Ole Miss (-1.0)
• 11/15 Texas at Georgia (-1.0)
• 11/29 Alabama at Auburn (+6.4)
• 11/29 LSU at Oklahoma (-1.4)

The simulation also suggests that the expected number of SEC teams to make the college football playoffs is 4.4. The odds that an SEC team wins the National Title are 46%.

Big 12 Overview and Prediction

Table 2 below shows the detailed results of my preseason simulation of the Big 12 race in the same format used in Table 1 above.

Table 2: Summary of the preseason projections for the Big 12 conference, based on the consensus preseason rankings and a 50,000 cycle Monte Carlo simulation of the full college football season. The Big 12 race shares some similarities with the SEC race. Specifically, there are nine conference teams bunched together at the top of the rankings. The result is that nine Big 12 teams have between a 10% and 32% chance to qualify for the conference championship game. Unlike the SEC, the top teams in the Big 12 enter the season ranked between No. 17 and No. 39 instead of in the national top 20. Based on the raw odds and the preseason rankings, No. 17 Arizona State (32% odds) and No. 20 Kansas State (31%) are the most likely teams to make the Big 12 Championship Game where the Sun Devils would be the slight favorite to win the Title. The most likely scenario gives essentially the same result. Ariona State is projected to be favored in all nine conference games. Kansas State only projects to be an underdog at No. 26 Baylor (-1). The disruptive simulation gives a much different possible scenario. In this case, three of the contenders with the easiest Big 12 schedules rise to the top of the standings. Baylor projects finish in first place with an 8-1 record. In this scenario, Baylor beats both Kansas State (+1) and Arizona State (-0.5) at home and takes a close loss to TCU (-1) on the road. The two teams that project to finish in a second-place tie are No. 29 BYU (7-2) and No. 39 Kansas (7-2). BYU is projected to lose road games at No. 24 Texas Tech (-5.7) and No. 31 Iowa State (-2.9) but to win close games versus No. 33 TCU (+5.1), versus No. 34 Utah (+5.5), at No. 50 Colorado (+3.1), and at No. 54 Cincinnati (+4.1). No. 39 Kansas is also projected to finish at 7-2 with losses at Texas Tech (-9.2) and at Iowa State (-6.4) and with close wins versus Kansas State (-3.6) at No. 60 UCF (+2.1), at No. 66 Arizona (+3.6), versus No. 34 Utah (+2). A potential tiebreaker between BYU and Kansas would be a virtual dead heat in this scenario, with the winner possibly being the highest ranked team in the college football playoff poll. I will give the nod to BYU due to the higher preseason ranking. However, Baylor (-1.2) would be expected to beat BYU on a neutral field making Baylor my pick to win the Big 12.

Based on this analysis, the fate of the Big 12 will likely depend on how the top teams in the league perform on the road. Arizona State needs to survive road tests at Baylor, Utah and Iowa State. Kansas State has challenging road tests at Baylor, Kansas, and Utah. The most impactful conference games are expected to be: 9/20: Arizona State at Baylor (+0.4) 10/4: Kansas State at Baylor (-1.0) 10/11: Arizona State at Utah (+3.4) 10/18: Baylor at TCU (-1.0) 10/25: BYU at Iowa State (-2.9) 10/25: Kansas State at Kansas (+3.6) 11/1: Arizona State at Iowa State (+2.3) 11/8: BYU at Texas State (-5.7) 11/22: Kansas State at Utah (+2.0) The simulation also suggests that the expected number of Big 12 teams to make the college football playoffs is 1.6. The odds that an Big 12 team wins the National Title are 6.6%.

ACC Overview and Prediction

Table 3 below shows the detailed results of my preseason simulation of the ACC race in the same format used in Table 1 and Table 2 above.

Table 3: Summary of the preseason projections for the ACC conference, based on the consensus preseason rankings and a 50,000 cycle Monte Carlo simulation of the full college football season.

The ACC appears to be the least competitive of the Power Four conferences. There are two  ACC teams ranked in the top 10 in the preseason: No. 7 Clemson and No. 10 Miami. There are only three other teams ranked in the top 40: No. 19 SMU, No. 27 Louisville, and No. 37 Georgia Tech.

Based on the raw odds, only these five teams have better than a 10% chance to qualify for the ACC Championship game. Clemson (50%) and Miami (41%) are heavy favorites to reach the title game.

The simulation of the most likely scenario gives the same result as the raw odds suggest. In this scenario, both Clemson and Miami go undefeated in conference place and meet in the ACC Championship Game. Clemson (-1.7) projects to win this game and the league title.

The disruptive scenario gives a slightly different result. In this case, Clemson (7-1) drops a road game at Louisville and Miami (7-1) drops a road game at SMU. Meanwhile, SMU (7-1) only has a loss at Clemson. The result is a three-way tie for first place between the top three teams in the preseason polls.

In this scenario, Clemson loses out in the tiebreaker due to the loss at Louisville, which is a common opponent of the three tied teams. Miami (-4.6) is projected to win the neutral field rematch with SMU, making the Miami Hurricanes my pick to win the ACC Championship.

The thing that distinguishes the ACC race from the races in the other four power conferences is a subtle difference in strength of schedule. In the other three leagues, there are one or more fringe contenders which have very weak conference strengths of schedule. This gives teams like Ole Miss and Baylor a solid chance to end up in the conference championship game.

In the ACC, all the top contenders have similar strengths of schedule. Furthermore, any dark horse team with a relatively weak schedule (such as No. 37 Georgia Tech) is too far behind the upper tier of the conference and there are too many other teams in the middle of the conference with comparable projected strength.

In summary, here are the ACC conference games which are most likely to impact the conference race, all of which are projected to be upsets in my disruptive scenario: 

• 9/27: Louisville at Pittsburgh (+2.2)
• 11/1: Louisville at Virginia Tech (+1.9)
• 11/1: Miami at SMU (+1)
• 11/15: Clemson at Louisville (+6.2)

The simulation also suggests that the expected number of ACC teams to make the college football playoffs is 1.7. The odds that an ACC team wins the National Title are 12%.

Now that we have thoroughly investigated the power four conference races, the next step in this preseason journey is the Group of Five conferences. Stay tuned.