Playoffs in College Football are a beautiful thing. Over the New Year holiday, we get the second round, the quarterfinals of said playoffs. We end the year with the first game of the quarterfinal round on Wednesday, and then begin 2026 with three more games on Thursday. Let’s preview these College Football Playoffs games and make our quarterfinal best bets.
The Goodyear Cotton Bowl will be up first on New Year’s Eve. Miami and Ohio State will get things fired up with a 7:30 ET kickoff on ESPN. Set the dial to ESPN, and you can leave it there for all four games. #2 Ohio State earned their first round bye, and Miami, as the #10 seed, upset #7 Texas A&M in an old school 10-3 game.
As we turn the calendar to 2026, the Capital One Orange Bowl kicks this off at 12:00 ET, a nice and early 9:00 AM kickoff for those of you on the West Coast. This one pits the #5-seeded Oregon Ducks against the #4-seeded Texas Tech Red Raiders. Texas Tech was the recipient of a bye for the first round, and the Ducks quickly dispatched the JMU Dukes in Eugene to get here.
With kickoff set for 4:00 ET, the Rose Bowl Game Presented by Prudential is up next. The #9-seeded Crimson Tide of Alabama is set to take on the undefeated 1-seeded Indiana Hoosiers. Alabama upset the Oklahoma Sooners in the first round, and Indiana, as the top overall seed and #1 team in the nation, received the bye.
The Allstate Sugar Bowl winner will complete the semifinals matchup bracket. This all-SEC matchup is set for an 8:00 ET kickoff. It features the Ole Miss Runnin’ Rebels, who take on the Bulldogs of Georgia. Ole Miss, the #6 seed destroyed Tulane in the first round of action. Georgia, champions of the SEC earned their first round bye.
Clean sweep 🧹 of round 1! @GamblingPodcast https://t.co/3yyjixje3w
— Cody Zeeb (@Husker_Zeeb) December 21, 2025
College Football Playoffs: Quarterfinals Best Bets
Ohio State -9.5 (-109)
This is a simple case of a team that belongs here and has won before, against a team that I just don’t see making it any farther than this point. We were on Miami to take down Texas A&M in the last round, but this is the end of the line for them. This Ohio State team is the defending National Champions, and they have been in this situation and thrived before. This is the round we generally see blowouts in because this is where the elite teams come into play. Ohio State destroyed Oregon, the #1 seed in this spot last year, and they’ll dismantle Miami in this one.
Ohio State’s HC Ryan Day has the highest career-winning percentage of any active head coach 👏🙌 pic.twitter.com/79jMVddag2
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) December 30, 2025
Texas Tech +2.5 (+105)
James Madison’s offense absolutely torched the Oregon Ducks’ defense last week. They weren’t able to capitalize, especially early on getting points out of it, which led to an easy Ducks win. However, facing a top-five offense in the nation in these Red Raiders is going to be a tough task for the Oregon Ducks this week. On the other side, this Texas Tech team has the #1 rushing defense in all the land, which is going to slow down a potent Duck rushing offense. Texas Tech has a +31.5 average point differential this year.
Comparing Resumes Between Texas Tech and Oregon
Texas Tech:
-Beat current #12 by 27
-Beat current #12 by 22
-Beat current #15 by 24
-Beat current #21 by 24Oregon:
-Lost to current #1 by 10
-Beat current #16 by 15
-2nd best win against a G5 school— SEC Numbers Guy (@secnumbersguy) December 30, 2025
When it comes to covering the spread, nobody is better than Texas Tech. They are a stunning 12-1 against the spread in 2025. Oregon checks in at just 8-5. This is a wrong-team-favored situation, and the Ducks appear to be getting a majority of the money coming in on them. Good, keep doubting Joey McGuire, Behren Morton, and company. They’ll take down the Ducks, who always look like the Buffalo Bills in the playoffs. Give me the points, and give me the moneyline.
Alabama +7.5 (-122)
I’m going to be very symmetrical here, but not on purpose. A second dog before we go back to the favorites side of things. Indiana completed their big season; they went undefeated. Then David went into the Big Ten game and slayed Goliath. It was a true story of the underdog. But all good stories have an ending, and this week might just be that ending. The Hoosiers are coming off their big Super Bowl win, and they’ve dumped the Gatorade. This Crimson Tide team walked out of that SEC Championship game with their tails between their legs, and they turned around and used that to take down Oklahoma. This has all the feels of a sloppy lower-scoring game, but Kalen DeBoer knows a thing or two about winning in the playoffs, when it matters the most. Roles reversed, this time, David is Goliath. Will Indiana lose? Maybe not, but Bama keeps it close and covers.
Kalen DeBoer:
20-5 vs Ranked Teams
10-4 as an underdog
4-0 on the Road vs Top 10 Teams pic.twitter.com/zCEFh3l4x9— Peter Burns (@PeterBurnsESPN) December 22, 2025
Georgia -6 (-120)
The biggest bet I’ve placed on the College Football season is for this game. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this elite Georgia Bulldogs team not even laying a touchdown over Ole Miss. It was so predictable that Ole Miss would get up in the last round, they’d rally around Pete Golding, stick their nose up at Lane Kiffin. Use that superior SEC talent to take down the inferior Tulane Green Wave. Now we have them right where we want them. Ready to be served up to a much better team. Ole Miss will be hoping they can keep it within 10 points as they did back in October. Give me Georgia -13.5 at 2/1, and as I said in the Ohio State section, often this round delivers blowouts; this will be the biggest one.
A rematch between Georgia and Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl 🔥
(Via m1les_28/TT) pic.twitter.com/Sja8mfgQxV
— College Football Alerts (@CFBAlerts_) December 30, 2025
