College Football Playoff Bracketology

Versus Sports Simulator projects the 12-team College Football Playoff field as if the playoffs began after Week 8 of the 2026 season, counting only games played. Brigham Young is the top seed in that field. Updated October 18, 2026.

Projected Bracket

Swipe the bracket sideways to see every round.

We favor the team shown advancing in every game, and the percentage beside it is its chance of winning that matchup.

In this view, Versus projects the field the selection committee might pick if the playoffs began today. Only games already played are counted, so no part of the season is forecast. The records are real, but the choice of which teams a committee would take from those records is still a Versus estimate. When two teams have the same number of losses, the one that won the game between them goes first.

The Field If the Playoffs Began Today

6 of the 12 places go to automatic qualifiers and the rest are at-large. This one counts only games already played, so no remaining games are forecast. The selection committee picks the real field once the regular season ends.

Championship Odds

Versus played this bracket out 20,000 times using a Monte Carlo simulation. In the bracket above, each percentage is a team's chance of winning that one game. The figures in this table cover every way the rest of the bracket could fall, upsets included, and the percentages automatically adjust when you advance a team in the interactive bracket.

First Teams Out

How This Projection Is Built

Every unplayed game on the schedule is run through the same prediction model that powers the Versus game simulator, using the ratings as they stood after Week 8. Those simulations give every team in contention a projected record and a projected rating, and they project the final conference standings, plus a projected winner for each conference championship game.

How the Field Is Chosen

The field follows the 2026 rules. The ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC champions are guaranteed a place regardless of ranking. A fifth place goes to the highest-ranked team from the American, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, Pac-12 or Sun Belt, whether or not that team wins its conference. Notre Dame is guaranteed a place if it ranks in the top 12. The remaining places go to the highest-ranked teams available. Seeding is straight: the four highest-ranked teams get the top seeds and the first-round byes, so an automatic bid guarantees a place in the field but not a seed.

How the Projected Rank Is Read

Every team carries two ranks on this page. One is where it stood in the Week 8 FBS rankings. The other is the projected final rank, which is where Versus expects that team to finish once the season is over. The projected final rank is the one that sets the seeding. It is also what separates two teams that finish with the same record.

Strength of Schedule Versus Strength of Record

Strength of schedule measures how hard a team's opponents are. Strength of record measures how unlikely it would be for the 25th best team in the FBS to come out of that same schedule with that same record.

James Madison is the clearest example this week. Its strength of schedule ranks 109th in the FBS, among the easier ones. Going 7-0 against it is still the 25th hardest record to achieve in the division, because a strong team dropped into that schedule would very likely have lost more often. A team can face an easy schedule and still produce a record that was hard to produce, which is why the two columns are ranked separately.

How the Order Is Decided

The order of selection blends two things: how good the model thinks a team is, and how good that team's resume is. Blending them is our best approximation of how a committee weighs the two against each other. Beating a top-25 team in the division earns a little extra credit in the order, and the amount slides with how good that opponent was. A win over the top-ranked team in the FBS is worth half a place. A win over the 25th is worth almost nothing. A team with several of those wins might climb a place or two, which is enough to settle an argument between two similar resumes and not enough to lift a team over one with a better record.

Two more steps follow, because a committee takes them and a formula does not. A conference champion is placed ahead of any team from its own conference that has as many losses or more. When two teams have the same number of losses, the one that won the game between them is placed ahead, unless a team with a better record sits between them. Games already played count, plus any conference championship game in the projection, and two teams that split their games are left as they are. Neither step applies to the views seeded by Versus ratings alone.

Where the Numbers Come From

Most bracketology is one person's opinion written up each week. This projection is computed. The same rating model that produces the FBS football rankings simulates every remaining game, applies the 2026 selection rules to the result, and seeds the field from it. No team is placed by hand, so this bracket changes only when results on the field change the ratings underneath it. The full method, with the math behind each step, is in How Versus Sports Simulator Projects the College Football Playoff and FCS Playoff Brackets.

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