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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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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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

GO DEEPER

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)

Trinity Rodman, the daughter of five-time NBA champion Dennis Rodman, called out her father for the “joke” apology he posted on social media after an interview the soccer star gave earlier this week when she spoke out about their strained relationship. 

Appearing on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, Trinity spoke openly about their relationship and said the NBA Hall of Famer has largely been absent from her life. 

“He’s not a dad. Maybe by blood, but nothing else,” she said. 

The interview prompted the former Chicago Bulls star to issue his own apology on social media, claiming that he’s previously been told not to attend her games and that Trinity had been told to ignore his repeated attempts to contact her. 

“Sorry I wasn’t the Dad you wanted me to be but either way I still tried and I still Try and Never will Stop. I will keep Trying even when you’re being told as an adult not to respond to my phone calls. I will try even when it’s difficult and if it takes a long time. 

“I’m always here And tell you all the time rather it’s your voice or voicemail how proud I am. I always had one wish and it was I wish my kids would call me and come see me. Hopefully one day I can get that. I’m here and I’m still trying pick up the phone you have my number, You see me calling, I’m still here.”

Washington Spirit forward Trinity Rodman with her father, basketball legend Dennis Rodman, after a game against the North Carolina Courage at Audi Field Nov. 7, 2021, in Washington, D.C.  (Tony Quinn/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

DENNIS RODMAN OFFERS APOLOGY TO SOCCER STAR DAUGHTER AFTER SHE RIPS HIM ON PODCAST

Unsurprisingly, the public apology was not received well by the U.S. women’s national team star.

“A joke,” she wrote to her Instagram story Thursday. “The response alone. And the attention. Wiping my hands with it and I’m done. Thank you.” 

​​Trinity, who also plays for the Washington Spirit in the National Women’s Soccer League, called her father an “extremely selfish human being” during the lengthy interview. 

“I think everything has always been about him. He’s gone through s—, but at the same time, I’m like, he loves the spotlight. He loves the cameras. He loves bringing his children on stage and being like, ‘Oh, these are my kids.’ All that stuff and even the mind … the mind f—, but like, for me emotionally, he’s put me through, like, oh my gosh.”

Shawn Kemp (40) of the Seattle SuperSonics posts up Dennis Rodman (91) of the Chicago Bulls during a game Jan. 10, 1996, at the United Center in Chicago.  (Barry Gossage/NBAE via Getty Images)

Trinity’s mother, Michelle Moyer, divorced Dennis Rodman in 2012. In the podcast, she said her mother tried to shield her and her brother, DJ Rodman, who plays in the NBA’s G League, from their father’s chaotic lifestyle growing up. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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As underdog hunters, we have been excited to watch college football’s championship morph into a playoff system, because with seeds come officially designated Davids and Goliaths, and with brackets come chances for meaningful upsets.

Well, that was our theory, anyway. The way this inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff has panned out, Boise State and Arizona State — entertaining squads who were conference champions but are by no stretch statistically dominant teams — grabbed the No. 3 and 4 seeds and the byes that go with them. And the fifth through 12th playoff contestants are now lined up pretty accurately. In each of this weekend’s first-round matchups, sportsbooks are favoring the home teams by more than a touchdown, and we can understand why.

But we can still help you hunt for value in the CFP’s opening round.

From NCAA basketball to the Olympics to the NFL, we have found that playoff underdogs tend to have three traits in common: They are underrated, they play high-risk/high-reward styles and they’ve suffered from bad luck.

So, this is how we studied the first round of the CFP: We looked at the power ratings of every team according to four systems, all of which essentially adjust the components of wins and losses (such as scoring) for strength of schedule: ESPN’s SP+ rankings, the Massey Ratings, the Simple Rating System and Team Rankings’ Predictive Ratings. We calculated the gaps between each set of opponents and then applied our bracket-breaking criteria. These are the results, with games listed in order of their upset chances.

No. 11 SMU at No. 6 Penn State

Upset chance: 33.4 percent

While betting lines have made SMU a +260 underdog in this contest, implying a 27.8 percent chance of a win, we think the Mustangs have a one-in-three chance (33.4 percent) of pulling off an upset.

For one, we’ve put together a Variability Index that measures how widely a team’s performance, adjusted for opponents, swings from week to week. The Mustangs rank 105th in the FBS this year, meaning they have been highly inconsistent. That’s good for an underdog: the better you are at your best, the greater your chances of beating a superior foe (and in a win-or-go-home scenario, nobody really cares how bad you are at your worst).

It’s doubly good in this case because the main reason SMU’s strength has changed considerably from game to game is that the Mustangs kept improving. Predicted to finish seventh in their first season in the ACC, they instead clobbered their conference opponents by increasing margins from the beginning of October through the end of November.

Led by Kevin Jennings, a quarterback who’s both efficient (66 percent completion percentage, 8.9 yards per attempt) and mobile (29.2 rushing yards per game), SMU’s up-tempo offense has racked up 501 points this season, sixth-most in the country. The Mustangs’ defense is more uneven. Their outstanding front four smothers the run and gets to opposing QBs: SMU allows just 2.7 yards per rush and has totaled 40 sacks; both of those figures are third-best in the FBS. But while the Mustangs have three safeties whose Pro Football Focus coverage grades rank among the top 30 in the country, SMU has given up a whopping 3,025 passing yards (ranking 111th). Buy the Mustangs, and you’re betting their pass rush will boom before their zone defense goes bust — and so far, that’s been a good wager.

SMU is also better than the result of its last game, a loss to Clemson in the ACC Championship Game. A sack, fumble return and penalty on a punt landed the Mustangs down by 14 before the game was five minutes old. Then they clawed all the way back, only for Clemson to beat them, 34-31, on a last-second 56-yard field goal. Chances are the Mustangs won’t dig themselves into that deep a hole again — another reason their odds against Abdul Carter & Co. are better than they look.

No. 10 Indiana at No. 7 Notre Dame

Upset chance: 27.9 percent

Subjectively, the Hoosiers, who are likely the best team in the 125-year history of Indiana football, make a heck of an underdog. And we’ve sung the praises of their coach, their quarterbacks and their receivers. But they’re +230 at BetMGM, and we see that as a bit generous: It implies upset chances of 30.3 percent vs. odds we calculate at 27.9 percent.

Statistically, we have to ask how much air needs to be let out of the Hoosiers’ tires because of their mediocre schedule. And while we can’t precisely quantify the answer yet, it’s some version of “a lot.” They’ve had a single game against a top-25 opponent all season — and Ohio State outgained Indiana by more than two-to-one, with Kurtis Rourke passing for just 68 yards en route to a 38-15 thrashing.

The Hoosiers aren’t simply an offensive juggernaut: They’ve allowed only 14.7 points per game (sixth in the FBS) while surrendering just 5.7 yards per passing attempt and a total of 10 passing touchdowns. But Notre Dame has given up a mere 13.6 points per game (ranking third), stifling opponents to 5.6 yards per attempt and nine passing TDs.

Bettors have taken a long time to appreciate Indiana, which has gone 9-3 against the spread this year, similar to the Fighting Irish, who are 9-2-1 ATS. The Hoosiers have been slightly lucky at converting points to wins, and Notre Dame has been slightly unlucky (as in two-points-away-from-being-undefeated unlucky).

One signal does favor the Hoosiers: Through December 16, 56 percent of the bets and 63 percent of the money wagered on this game have been on Indiana, according to the Action Network. But we can’t find much to trump the statistical evidence that there’s a difference of a bit more than a touchdown between these teams.

No. 9 Tennessee at No. 8 Ohio State

Upset chance: 25 percent

Advanced ranking systems suggest there is a much larger gap in this game than a one-seed difference would imply. That’s particularly true in the Simple Rating System (SRS) ratings, which place the Buckeyes as the best of the eight teams playing first-round games and the Volunteers the worst. The three other systems are more generous to Tennessee, but our synergistic model still only gives the Vols a 25 percent chance of winning, compared to an implied 29.4 percent offered by the +240 moneyline at BetMGM.

However, there are reasons to believe the metrics are undervaluing Tennessee. That’s mostly due to the Vols’ defense. According to Sharp Football’s “Defensive Beta_Rank” advanced stats, Tennessee has the country’s eighth-best defense. The Vols only allowed two teams to score more than 19 points all season: Georgia (31) and Vanderbilt (23, seven of which came from a kickoff return on the opening play). They held Alabama to 17 points in a victory in October, and the Crimson Tide happen to rank ninth in Sharp’s offensive ratings, one spot ahead of Ohio State.

It’s also worth noting that Ohio State’s offense has sputtered at times against strong defenses. The Buckeyes only scored 20 points against Penn State’s 14th-ranked unit and infamously put up only 10 points against Michigan’s 19th-ranked defense. Of course, Ohio State scored 30-plus against top-25 defenses from Indiana (seventh), Oregon (17th) and Iowa (22nd). So the Buckeyes certainly have explosive potential.

But this game has all the ingredients for a tight, physical, conservative battle. Temperatures are expected to be in the low 20s in Columbus Saturday night. Ohio State’s defense is even better than Tennessee’s (No. 2 in Sharp’s ratings). This matchup has the lowest total (46.5) of any first-round game, which means there’s more of a chance for a pesky underdog to hang around. Tennessee has been consistent (30th in our variability rankings) and right in the middle of the pack in luck ratings, so even if that doesn’t ultimately lead to a Tennessee outright win, that game script could favor the Vols +7.5, as well as the under.

No. 12 Clemson at No. 5 Texas

Upset chance: 22.8 percent

You know, those folks in Vegas might have a pretty good idea of what they’re doing. Clemson is +325 on the moneyline, which means its implied odds to win are 23.5 percent. That aligns with the chance our composite model gives the Tigers (22.8 percent).

Unfortunately for the Tigers, neither their underdog traits nor Texas’ profile as a favorite does much to shift those odds. Clemson ranks in the mid-50s in the FBS in both variability and luck, so they haven’t really underperformed or shown a massive ceiling this season. And Texas is exactly what you want to see in a safe favorite: Not only are the Longhorns extremely consistent (seventh in the country in lowest variability), but they’ve also been unfortunate (82nd in luck). So they may be even better than their record indicates.

But instead of ending on some misbegotten crack about how Syracuse would make a more entertaining ACC entrant in the CFP than Clemson, let’s use this game to consider a truly amazing probability. If Texas gets by Clemson, we estimate there’s about an 85 percent chance the Longhorns would then defeat Arizona State. Which means the odds that Texas will make the semifinal of the Playoff are about two in three.

Now ask yourself: Does Oregon have a 65 percent chance to beat Ohio State?

The biggest lesson from how the CFP matchups are shaking out is that Texas’ No. 5 slot is the sweetest spot in the field. Even with the Ducks holding a bye in their beaks, at this moment, you’d rather be Texas than Oregon.

(Illustration by Will Tullos; photo of Kevin Jennings: Grant Halverson / Getty Images; photo of Kurtis Rourke: James Black / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images; photo of Dylan Sampson: Jacob Kupferman / Getty Images)