The 2025 regular season has come and gone, and the stages are set for conference title games this week.
After Georgia Tech and SMU lost this past weekend, Duke landed a spot in the ACC title game based on a tiebreaker with Miami. The chaos in the ACC continues as arguably the best team in the conference will miss the title game this season.
Texas earned its biggest win of the season after taking down undefeated No. 3 Texas A&M on Friday evening. Though the Longhorns finished with a 9-3 regular-season record, their losses aren't the only reason they could be left out of the 12-team College Football Playoff. And BYU looks to stamp its spot in the playoff.
Our college football experts break down key storylines and takeaways from Week 14.
Jump to:
Texas' problem | New Mexico's Jason Eck
ACC chaos | Arizona's surprising win
The case for BYU
Texas has a Florida problem
The College Football Playoff selection committee will not exclude Texas because it scheduled Ohio State and lost to the No. 1 team on its home field. If the Longhorns miss the playoff, it will be because they lost to a 4-8 Florida team. Yes, Texas earned one of the best wins in the country against Texas A&M, and victories against Oklahoma and Vanderbilt give the Longhorns a strong case for inclusion in the 12-team field. But they needed overtime to beat Kentucky and Mississippi State, two opponents that combined for a 10-14 record. They also got hammered by Georgia 35-10. If the Longhorns finished 10-2 -- and their only losses were to Ohio State and Georgia -- they'd be a no-brainer top-10 playoff team. There were enough questions this season, though, that those losses won't be the committee's main concern on Selection Day. -- Heather Dinich
New Mexico's Eck shows that fun equals winning
New Mexico's Jason Eck is one of college football's most entertaining coaches, a point that's obvious almost any time he opens his mouth. He's also one of the best first-year hires in the sport.
Eck took over a Lobos program reeling from the abrupt intraleague departure of coach Bronco Mendenhall to Utah State, and the exits of quarterback Devon Dampier and offensive coordinator Jason Beck to Utah. Any momentum New Mexico gained from its first season of five or more wins since 2016 seemed to vanish, and Eck faced a hard reset in Albuquerque. Eck also had not coached in the FBS since 2010, and became a head coach in 2022 at Idaho.
But he has stepped into the role and thrived, completing the regular season at 9-3, after Friday's overtime win against San Diego State. Eck set a team record for wins by a first-year coach, while New Mexico went 6-0 at home for the first time since 1938 and tied a team record with its sixth Mountain West victory. New Mexico won nine regular-season games for the first time since 1997. More than 30,000 fans attended Friday's game, New Mexico's largest home crowd since 2008, many of whom rushed the field after the victory. New Mexico did not make the Mountain West championship game, but Eck received a five-year contract and a raise Sunday.
"Lobo fans should know, when you come there, you're going to have a lot of fun times, and you're going to leave home a winner more often than not," Eck said.
Eck's instant success underscores several important points. Coaches can win and have some fun while they're doing it. They also can come from lower levels of college football and transition easily, as Indiana's Curt Cignetti has magnified and others have shown. -- Adam Rittenberg
Duke reaches ACC title game in most chaotic season yet
Remember when conferences had divisions, and the ACC had the Coastal, the most lovable division of all because chaos always ensued? It was harmless at the time because Clemson or Florida State would roll over whichever team the Coastal Chaos gods chose as their representative in the conference championship game, and the ACC would be well represented in the playoff.
Now, the joke might be on the ACC. Coastal Chaos seemed to envelop the entire league this year, so the result should not be surprising: 7-5 Duke (!!) will play 10-2 Virginia in the ACC championship game with a College Football Playoff spot on the line. Miami, meanwhile, the highest-ranked and best team in the ACC, got shut out because it lost a tiebreaker.
Duke made it to the title game because its conference opponent win percentage was better -- something Miami legitimately couldn't control. Now, you could say that if Miami were the best team in the conference, the Hurricanes should not have lost two games in ACC play, and that would be fair. Miami had the SMU game in control until it didn't, and for that, it is paying a steep price.
But considering Duke and Miami finished 6-2 in league play, the tiebreaker used to determine who will play in the ACC title game seems particularly random. The ACC would be wise to consider a change to its tiebreaker policy that would allow CFP rankings to be used when there is no head-to-head matchup to consider -- as was the case here. Bloated conferences without divisions have led to this moment, but this feels like an easy fix.
Having Duke in the title game does nothing to help the narrative and perception of the league. It only underscores that the ACC does not have its act together in football. If Duke wins, there's already chatter that potential Sun Belt champion James Madison could take one of the CFP spots that goes to the top-five conference champions, leaving the ACC kicked to the curb.
It is important to remember there are no guaranteed spots for the Power 4 champs. The top-five conference champions get to go, regardless of conference. Would the committee leave out the rightful ACC champion? Duke is taking a heaping of criticism, but the Blue Devils did what they had to do in league play to give themselves a chance. Its 1-3 nonconference record, with losses to Tulane and UConn, certainly stains the way people view the Blue Devils and might impact what the committee does if faced with that choice.
But what has unfolded has less to do with Duke and more to do with the ACC having a year in which its biggest brands faltered, and teams with better records favored to make the title game lost (Georgia Tech and SMU), ultimately exposing a flawed tiebreaker system that could cost the ACC dearly. -- Andrea Adelson
Arizona caps surprise surge with rivalry win
Coming into the season, Arizona was picked by some to finish last in the Big 12, after dropping seven of eight games to end the 2024 season.
Instead, the Wildcats finished this regular season as one of the hottest teams in college football. On Friday, they won their fifth in a row, hammering rival Arizona State 23-7 on the road to finish 9-3.
The combination of quarterback Noah Fifita's resurgence and an opportunistic defense has propelled Arizona's turnaround.
The Wildcats forced Arizona State into five turnovers to take back the Territorial Cup and eliminate the Sun Devils from Big 12 title game contention. Arizona leads the country with 28 forced turnovers.
Offensively, Fifita has rediscovered his groove after a rough 2024 season. He has thrown for 26 touchdowns with just five interceptions, the second-best TD-to-INT rate in the Big 12.
The Wildcats will wait and see where they will play their bowl game. But coach Brent Brennan has the arrow pointing up again in just his second season in Tucson. -- Jake Trotter
The case for BYU
BYU ends the regular season taking down UCF 41-21 at home.
In all likelihood, the SEC will get five teams in the College Football Playoff. Those five teams -- Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Texas A&M -- are all great, and have impressive résumés and compelling arguments to back why they are ranked in the top 10. Each is probably good enough to beat anyone in the country on any given day.
Basic math also tells us that one of them is not a top-four team in its own conference, so the idea that the No. 5 team deserves a chance to prove it is the best in the country as part of a 12-team playoff is inherently flawed. It's an interesting dilemma, particularly when you look at the case for BYU. The Cougars are 11-1, rank No. 6 in ESPN's strength of record metric but didn't play as difficult a schedule as the SEC teams ranked ahead of it.
Alabama has better wins than BYU, but it also lost to a team that finished with a losing record (Florida State). Texas A&M also is 11-1, but didn't beat a ranked team from the SEC. It's a similar story with Ole Miss. The Rebels are safely in at 11-1, but are 1-1 against top-20 teams, just like BYU.
BYU didn't help its cause by playing a lot of close games against mediocre teams. It's a reasonable explanation for why the Cougars are ranked where they are, but it's also tough to escape the notion that SEC teams are more easily forgiven for winning close against bad SEC teams. BYU's only loss is to Texas Tech -- which could land a top-3 seed -- so to otherwise run the table in what is clearly the No. 3 conference, and get left out would be a tough fate to accept.
These types of discussions are impossible to avoid. The line will always be drawn somewhere and the larger the field, the harder it will be to parse between teams for the final spot. No matter the format, there will be aggrieved teams. -- Kyle Bonagura