For the 16th consecutive season, I will be publishing weekly columns late in the season which analyze all of  the FBS conference championship races. Like my bowl bubble watch, there is not really a column like this on any other mainstream college football site.  Bolded teams have already clinched their division or conference. Italicized teams are my predicted champions of their respective conferences/divisions at this point in time.  This list is updated through all games played on Saturday November 22, 2025.

ACC–  Virginia/Duke (The wild and crazy ACC title race took another sharp turn on Saturday night with Pitt’s upset win over Georgia Tech.  That leaves three one-loss teams tied atop the standings in Virginia, SMU, and Pitt followed by three two-loss teams in Georgia Tech, Miami-FL, and Duke.  Let me break down the  absurdity of the ACC in one sentence for you: Duke enters the last weekend of the regular season with a chance of winning the College Football National Championship but also has a chance of finishing the season with a losing record!  Obviously lots of different scenarios can still play out in this conference title race, but the most obvious outcome makes this conference championship game situation pretty easy to figure out.  Miami will be favored, however slight, to be Pitt on the road and SMU and Virginia will both be favored against lesser opponents in Cal and Virginia Tech respectively.  If the favorites win all three of those games, then we are looking at Virginia and SMU conference championship game as both teams will finish the season alone atop the standings at 7-1.  Shockingly enough, the one loss both teams will have suffered will be against the exact same team…the mighty Wake Forest Demon Deacons!  I am going to call for a little chaos though.  I think Cal bounces back from their loss in the Big Game versus Stanford and plays spoiler against the Mustangs.  Virginia does usually struggle against Virginia Tech but because that game is in Charlottesville I believe the Cavs will win.  And I am going to call for Miami to beat Pitt.  In this scenario, Virginia will be the only one loss team in the league and clinch a spot in Charlotte.  Meanwhile, the second spot will come down to a tiebreaker between what I am predicting to be five 6-2 teams in Miami-FL, Pitt, Duke, SMU, and Georgia Tech.  In this scenario, the applicable tiebreaker will be conference win percentage of each team’s eight conference opponents.  Going into next weekend, Miami’s opponents have a combined record of 27-32, Pitt’s opponents have a record of 24-36, Duke’s opponents have a record of 29-29, SMU’s opponents have a record of 24-35, and Georgia Tech’s are 25-32.  And while these numbers are subject to change over the final weekend of the season, Duke’s lead in this metric is substantial enough where they would almost certainly prevail in this scenario.  As a result, I am calling for an unfathomable Duke vs. Virginia ACC Championship Game!  It is also worth noting that in the event all three of the one-loss teams win next weekend, then SMU and Virginia will advance to the ACC title game because they both beat the one common opponent  in which they have with disparate results, Louisville, and Pitt lost to the Cards.)

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Big 12– Texas Tech/BYU  (It would take a major upset to add some intrigue to this conference title race, as all Texas Tech and BYU need to do to clinch the two bids to Jerry’s World will be to beat West Virginia and UCF respectively in each of their regular season finales.  Arizona State and Utah are still in the picture with a pair of losses each and both of those teams do have some favorable results that could help them in a potential tiebreaker, as Utah beat Arizona State and Arizona State beat both BYU and Texas Tech.  However, it is highly unlikely at this point that any tiebreaker scenarios will come into play, as a Red Raider vs. Cougar conference title game seems like a foregone conclusion.  What was as recently as last week, a wild and crazy conference championship race has been tranquilized thanks to the stellar play of BYU and Texas Tech down the stretch of the season.)

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Big Ten– Indiana/Ohio State (The Hoosiers and Buckeyes seem to be well on their way to a huge 1 vs. 2 matchup of unbeaten teams in the Big Ten title game; however, they each have to get past their arch rival to make it official.  The Hoosiers have the easier of the two matchups as all they need to do is beat 2-9 Purdue next weekend and they will be in a conference championship game for the first time in school history.  Ohio State should also make it to Indianapolis but they are going to have to finally get over the hump against Michigan next Saturday to get there.  If the Buckeyes do drop a fifth straight to the Wolverines, then we would have to use the league tiebreakers to break a tie between Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon, and potentially Indiana if they were to somehow also get upset by Purdue.  In that situation, the applicable tiebreaker would most likely be the winning percentage of each team’s conference opponents, which is the same as most leagues utilize now due to conference schedules being so unbalanced.  The one exception to that is that if Indiana and Michigan both win and Oregon lose next weekend, then the only teams tied would be Michigan and Ohio State.  In that situation, the Wolverines would obviously go over the Buckeyes since they would have just won the head-to-head matchup between the two.  If we do, however, go to the conference opponents win percentage, then here are those numbers for each team: Michigan’s opponents currently have a record of 29-43, Ohio State’s opponents have a record of 30-42, Indiana’s opponents have a record of 24-48, and Oregon’s opponents have a record of 38-48.  Therefore, the Ducks would have the advantage if one or two of the Big Ten title game bids were decided using this metric.)

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SEC– Georgia/Ole Miss (Nothing really changed this weekend regarding the SEC title race, as none of the four contenders, Georgia, Texas A & M, Ole Miss, or Alabama, played a conference game Georgia remains the only team who has completed their conference regular season and is in the clubhouse at 7-1.  However, they have not locked up a spot in Atlanta yet, as Texas A & M is still a game ahead of them and Bama owns the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Dawgs.  Nevertheless, I have picked Auburn to finally get over the hump against Bama all season long and I am going to stick with it despite the Tigers’ struggles this year.  A loss in Jordan-Hare would likely knock Alabama out of both the SEC Title Game and the College Football Playoff picture. I also believe A & M loses on the road to Texas, so at the end of the next week, I think we will be left with three one-loss SEC teams: Texas A & M,  Georgia, and Ole Miss.  The applicable tiebreaker in place here would be the same as the ACC, which is the combined win percentage of conference opponents.  Currently, Georgia’s conference opponents have a record of 27-31, Ole Miss’ have a record 21-39, and Texas A & M’s have a record of 16-42.  And while this tiebreaking metric is subject to change over the final week, I believe Georgia and Ole Miss will beat out A & M in this metric at the end of the year and create an SEC Championship rematch of their epic regular season battle.  It is also worth noting that Alabama’s conference opponents have a record of 29-29, so if  the Tide is able to take care of Auburn in Jordan-Hare next weekend, they will almost certainly grab one of the two spots in Atlanta to play either Georgia or Texas A & M.  

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American– North Texas/Tulane (This conference championship race will most likely determine which team earns the Group of Five bid to the College Football Playoff, and the two spots in the league title game will almost certainly go to two of the three teams currently tied for first place: Navy, Tulane, and North Texas.  All three squands wrap up their conference slate next weekend, but the Green Wave and Mean Green have significantly easier games than Navy.  Tulane hosts Charlotte, North Texas hosts Temple, while Navy must travel to Memphis to play on Thanksgiving night.  Because of this, I think the Tigers will make this league championship race pretty simple by taking care of the Midshipment to set up an “all green” AAC title game.  If Navy is able to get past Memphis, then a three-way tie will be established and Tulane will almost certainly get to both play in and host the conference title game, based on the fact they will carry the highest CFP ranking of the three.  The second spot will then be awarded to North Texas because they beat the Midshipment head-to-head.  Therefore, not only does Navy need to beat Memphis to get a title game shot, but they will likely need to have either Tulane or North Texas lose to bypass one of them in the rankings. South Florida and East Carolina are both technically still in the mix with matching 5-2 records, but they will need a ton of help to find a way into the American Athletic Championship Game.)     

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Conference USA– Jacksonville State/Kennesaw State (With Jacksonville State’s loss to FIU, we are left with a three way tie atop the league standings between Jacksonville State, Kennesaw State, and Western Kentucky. No other team has a chance at qualifying for the C-USA title game besides these three as the only two-loss team in the league, Missouri State, is ineligible for the league crown based on its FBS transitional status. Two of these three eligible squads actually play each other in their season finale, as next Saturday’s game between the Hilltoppers and Gamecocks will serve as a de facto conference semifinal. Kennesaw State plays Liberty at the same time, so if the Owls can beat the Flames then they will play the winner of the WKU and JSU contest for all the marbles on championship weekend. I am predicting Jacksonville State and Kennesaw State to win these games next week to setup a most unlikely Conference USA championship game. Nevertheless, things will get more complicated in the event that Kennesaw loses to Liberty. That scenario would setup a tie between the Owls and the loser of the aforementioned semifinal contest. In the event that it is the Owls and the Gamecocks tied, Jacksonville State would earn the second bid based on their head-to-head regular season win over Kennesaw. The Gamecocks did not play the Hilltoppers during the regular season, however, so in the event those two teams tie, then it would have to be broken with the same metric used in the American Athletic Conference with a composite average of selected computer metrics consisting of Connolly SP+, SportSource TR 116 SOR, ESPN SOR, and KPI.   Currently, Western Kentucky’s average in these rankings is 74.5 and Kennesaw’s is 84.3  so the Hilltoppers would have the edge in this scenario.  To make a long story short, the winner of the Western Kentucky/Jacksonville State game will earn one bid to the conference title game and Kennesaw State will earn the other as long as they beat Liberty.  If they lose to Liberty, then the WKU/JSU will play in a league title rematch.

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MAC– Western Michigan/Toledo (As we enter the final week of the regular season, there are still five teams in this league with a chance to play for the league title: Miami-OH, Ohio, Western Michigan Central Michigan, and Toledo.  Because there are countless different scenarios that could play out with these five teams over the final week of the season, let’s stick with the basics.  Western Michigan has the edge over the field, as they are a game ahead of the other four contenders in league play.  I am going to call for them to beat Eastern Michigan on Tuesday to claim one of the MAC title game spots.  The second spot in this game will then almost certainly come down to a tiebreaker between multiple two loss teams.  Ohio and Miami-OH both have winnable games against Buffalo and Ball State respectively and then the winner of Toledo and Central Michigan will also finish league play at 6-2.  I am going to call for Toledo to win that one to set up a three-way between Ohio, Toledo, and Miami-OH, the three preseason favorites to win the league.  The Redhawks lost to both of the Bobcats and Rockets so they would be the first of the three to be eliminated.  Toledo and Ohio didn’t play one another so the next tiebreaker we would look at would be each squad’s record against common opponents.  Unfortunately, that tiebreaker also wouldn’t get us anywhere because these squads only have two common opponents in which they have different records against: Bowling Green and Ball State and both Toledo and Ohio went 1-1 against those squads.  The next tiebreaker we would revert to is the closely related metric of record against common opponents based on their order of finish.  This is what will break the tie as Ball State (3-4) is guaranteed to finish ahead of Bowling Green (1-6) in the final MAC standings.  Because Toledo beat Ball State on Saturday and Bowling Green lost to them earlier this year, the Rockets would advance in this scenario.  As a result, I am predicting a Toledo vs. Western Michigan matchup in the MAC Championship Game.)

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Mountain West– San Diego State/UNLV (The Mountain West title race cleared up a little this past weekend as the number of teams with a chance to house the league crown dropped from six to four with Fresno’s loss to Utah State and Hawaii’s Friday night defeat in Vegas.   San Diego State is still the clear frontrunner in league play with a 6-1 record.  Meanwhile, waiting in the wings, just a game behind them are: Boise State, New Mexico, and UNLV, who are all tied for second at 5-2 in conference.  San Diego State can clinch the outright regular season title with a win over New Mexico next Friday, and while that will be a tricky trip to Albuquerque, I think the Aztecs ultimately prevail to clinch one of the two spots in the league title game.  I then think the second spot will go to UNLV, as I anticipate Boise losing on road to Utah State which would send the Rebels to San Diego for the league championship game, assuming they can get by the suddenly competent Nevada Wolf Pack.  If Boise was able to win in Logan next Friday, then they will almost certainly get a chance to play for the conference crown based on their head-to-head victory over UNLV in a game I attended on the Smurf Turf last month.)  

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Sun Belt East– James Madison (The Dukes are locked into the Sun Belt title game with an outside chance of making it to the College Football Playoff.)

Sun Belt West– Southern Miss (With all of the complex conference title game scenarios that we have entering the final week of the regular season, it is nice to have one that is incredibly simple.  Troy hosts Southern Miss next Saturday afternoon and the winner of that will play James Madison in the Sun Belt Championship Game.  And I am calling for the Golden Eagles to bounce back from their road loss to South Alabama on Saturday and beat Troy to win a most unlikely division title.)  

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In addition to my analysis above of every conference/division title race, I always like to rank each conference or division title race based on the intrigue each provides and the importance each holds in the overall college football landscape.  Here are my current rankings of all 10 of the division/conference championship races:

1. ACC (between Georgia Tech, Virginia, Pitt, Duke, Miami-FL, and SMU)
2. SEC (between Texas A & M, Alabama, Georgia, and Ole Miss)
3. Mountain West (between San Diego State, New Mexico, and UNLV)
4. MAC (between Miami-OH, Ohio, Western Michigan Central Michigan, and Toledo)
5. American (between Navy, North Texas, Tulane, South Florida and East Carolina)
6. Conference USA (between Jacksonville State, Kennesaw State, and Western Kentucky)
7. Big Ten (between Ohio State, Indiana, Oregon, and Michigan)
8. Big 12 (between Texas Tech, BYU, Utah, and Arizona State)
9. Sun Belt West (between Southern Miss and Troy)
10. Sun Belt East (already clinched by James Madison)