After being on the outside looking in last year, Alabama and Miami can breathe a sigh of relief as the Crimson Tide and Hurricanes were the last at-large teams selected — ahead of Notre Dame — for the 12-team College Football Playoff field announced Sunday.
Undefeated Big Ten champion Indiana (13-0) earned the No. 1 overall seed, while two Group of 5 teams — American Conference champ Tulane (11-2) and Sun Belt victor James Madison (12-1) — were selected to the CFP field to deny any representation from the ACC.
In addition to the Hoosiers, No. 2 seed Ohio State (12-1), No. 3 Georgia (12-1) and No. 4 Texas Tech (12-1) were awarded first-round byes, guaranteed to the four highest teams in the rankings.
The Fighting Irish (10-2) were the first team out as the committee took Alabama (10-3) and Miami (10-2) instead.
The Crimson Tide, which stayed at No. 9 after their 28-7 loss to Georgia in the SEC championship game, will visit No. 8 seed Oklahoma (10-2) in the first round.
Miami, which didn’t play Saturday after failing to advance to the ACC championship game, will visit No. 7 Texas A&M (11-1).
With Duke’s win over Virginia (10-3), James Madison finished ahead of the Blue Devils (8-5) in the final CFP rankings — the committee takes the five highest-ranked conference champions — to get the No. 12 seed. The Dukes, who officially moved from FCS to FBS in 2022, will visit No. 5 seed Oregon (11-1) in the first round.
Tulane is the No. 11 seed and will face No. 6 Ole Miss (11-1) in a matchup of programs affected by coaching carousel chaos. The Rebels enter the playoff with a new head coach (Pete Golding) following Lane Kiffin’s exit to LSU, while the Green Wave will continue to be coached by Jon Sumrall, who will depart for Florida following the playoffs.
The first-round games will be played Dec. 19 and Dec. 20 at campus sites of the higher-seeded team. The quarterfinals (Dec. 31-Jan. 1; TV: ESPN) and semifinals (Jan. 8-9; TV: ESPN) follow at the traditional New Year’s Six bowl games, and a national champion will be crowned on Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).
Bowl season kicks off Dec. 13 at noon with the Cricket Celebration Bowl at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
In all, 36 bowl games are scheduled, in addition to the 11 games of the CFP, and 42 of those games will air on the ESPN/ABC family of networks.