College Football Playoff bracket predictions: The Athletic’s national championship picks

Who will win the first 12-team College Football Playoff? Six teams received at least one vote in our survey of 30 college football writers and editors at The Athletic, a big change from 10 years of postseason tournaments in which only four teams were in the field.

Though Oregon got a majority of the votes, plenty of variety emerged as our staff filled out their brackets ahead of the first round, which begins with Indiana at Notre Dame on Friday night. In fact, even No. 12 seed Clemson, which has three losses, got a national championship vote.

Here’s who we picked and how those predictions compare to Austin Mock’s projections model:

First round

Not surprisingly, the consensus of our 30 voters is chalk.

Per BetMGM, the better seed is favored by at least 7.5 points in every first-round game. Mock’s projections give each favorite at least a 65 percent chance to win, and our closest staff vote is Tennessee getting 11 votes to win at Ohio State in a matchup that undoubtedly presents challenges for the Buckeyes, especially after the way their offensive line played in the loss to Michigan.

Quarterfinals

Oregon ended up with a tough draw despite being the nation’s only unbeaten team, as it will head to the Rose Bowl to face the winner of Ohio State-Tennessee. Mock’s model gives the Ducks just a 53 percent chance of getting through. Ohio State would be a rematch, as Oregon beat the Buckeyes 32-31 in a thriller in Eugene in October.

Still, 25 of our 30 voters picked Oregon to win the Rose Bowl, compared to just five for Ohio State and zero for Tennessee. Every person who picked the Buckeyes to beat Oregon also picked them to win the national title.

Arizona State is seeded fourth as the Big 12 champion but ranked 12th in the CFP Top 25 — nine spots behind Texas and four spots ahead of Clemson. Texas is the overwhelming favorite to both beat Clemson and get through the Sun Devils in the Peach Bowl to advance to an in-state semifinal in the Cotton Bowl, with only four people choosing Arizona State to win and two picking Clemson.

Only three of 30 voters picked Indiana to beat Notre Dame, and none had the Hoosiers pulling off two upsets and also taking down Georgia. The staff is split on a potential Georgia-Notre Dame Sugar Bowl, however: Fourteen of the 27 people to pick Notre Dame to beat Indiana also have the Fighting Irish toppling the Bulldogs.

This is the least chalky part of the bracket. Most voters like Penn State to beat SMU at home, but our staff is fond of Boise State revitalizing its Cinderella status on New Year’s Eve in the Fiesta Bowl. Historically, both the Nittany Lions (7-0) and Broncos (3-0) are unbeaten in the Fiesta Bowl. Here, only half of the 22 voters who picked Penn State to beat SMU also picked the Nittany Lions to beat Boise State. In total, Boise State gets 16 votes to win the Fiesta Bowl to Penn State’s 12 and SMU’s two.

Mock’s model disagrees, as it has Penn State beating both SMU and Boise State 48 percent of the time.

Semifinals

Whoever emerges from the Oregon-Ohio State-Tennessee trio may end up with a tough draw in the semifinals in the Cotton Bowl against Texas, which would be playing close to home. Still, two-thirds of our staff likes Oregon to win the Cotton Bowl, while just five opted for Ohio State, four chose Texas and one rolled with a surprise run to the national title game by No. 12 seed Clemson.

Though Mock’s model puts the chances of Georgia, Penn State and Notre Dame advancing to the national title game all between 20 and 29 percent, our staff has mostly rallied around either Georgia or Notre Dame. Georgia got 15 votes to win the Orange Bowl to Notre Dame’s 12, while Penn State got just two and Boise State got one.

National championship

Going undefeated is difficult, but 17 of our 30 voters believe Oregon can run the table for a 15-0 record to become the first new national champion since Florida in 1996. It’s a big step up from the Ducks earning 10.7 percent of our preseason vote and 6.7 percent of the midseason vote.

Only four teams received votes to win the national title in the preseason: Ohio State (57.1 percent), Georgia (28.6 percent), Oregon (10.7 percent) and Alabama (3.6 percent). That number expanded to five by midseason: Texas (50 percent), Ohio State (36.7 percent), Oregon (6.7 percent), Georgia (3.3 percent) and Clemson (3.3 percent).

Now, the field of possible national champions has been narrowed to just 12, but six teams received at least one vote to win it all. Here is a case for each of those six teams:

Oregon: Every other team has a weakness that’s been exposed at some point. The teams that present the biggest threats to Oregon — Ohio State, Texas and Georgia — looked vulnerable the last time they took the field. Oregon’s defense showed some cracks against Penn State, but the Ducks have shown they can win a shootout if they have to. And Dillon Gabriel is the quarterback I’d want if I could pick one Playoff QB to lead a deep run. — Austin Meek

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Oregon goes unbeaten (with swagger) in first Big Ten season. And the Ducks aren’t finished

Ohio State: Ohio State put together a horrific game plan against Michigan and it cost the Buckeyes dearly. I anticipate Ohio State will play much looser and put a premium on getting the nation’s best set of skill-position players into the right spots and maximizing potential mismatches to its advantage. — Scott Dochterman

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Will Howard realizes his final chapter at Ohio State has yet to be written

Texas: The Longhorns have the best and deepest roster. For all the attention on the quarterbacks and Texas’ offensive-minded head coach, it’s the defense that has carried the Longhorns: They allow just one point per drive, lowest in the FBS. And when the offense gets going, it makes Texas hard to beat. — Sam Khan Jr.

GO DEEPER

Texas will go as far as Quinn Ewers takes it, for better or worse

Georgia: Georgia is talented, extremely battle tested (six games vs. top-16 teams), and, most importantly, will be at its healthiest all season — except for quarterback Carson Beck, of course. Also, the title game is in Atlanta. — Stewart Mandel

GO DEEPER

A backup QB, of all people, comes to Georgia’s rescue — not detriment

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Notre Dame: Notre Dame’s defense will get the job done. I love how this team responded to the loss to Northern Illinois, and that will carry over into the Playoff. The Irish were written off after that loss, and Marcus Freeman’s group showed an impressive determination to move past that. — Daniel Shirley

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How Notre Dame saved its Playoff expectations after the season’s worst loss

Clemson: Quinn Ewers has not looked 100 percent since September, Arizona State has to fly all the way to Atlanta for its quarterfinal and the winner of the Rose Bowl may be running on fumes by the semis. Ten years of CFP history have taught me that if something good can happen for Clemson in late December, it usually will. Cade Klubnik has been just clutch enough, Bryant Wesco Jr. is on a Justyn Ross-like late-season trajectory and I can’t help but assume Dabo Swinney has the perfect mentality for tournament football. — Eric Single

GO DEEPER

Dabo Swinney guides Clemson back to the Playoff — fool’s gold or proof of concept?

So what matchup will we see for the national championship on Jan. 20 in Atlanta?

Stewart Mandel ranked all 36 possibilities after the bracket was revealed. Our 30 voters came up with eight matchups, with No. 1 Oregon vs. No. 2 Georgia the most common at one-third of the vote. Twenty-seven of the 30 had at least one of Oregon, Ohio State or Georgia, including two who picked Georgia meeting Texas for the third time this season.

Special shout out to our one voter who went for the chaos bracket choice of Clemson vs. Boise State.

(Photo of Jalon Walker and Dillon Gabriel: Tim Warner, Ali Gradischer / Getty Images)