Overview
- Indiana, Ohio State, Georgia and Texas Tech earned first-round byes as the top four seeds in the 12-team bracket.
- First-round campus games are set for Dec. 19–20: James Madison at Oregon, Tulane at Ole Miss, Miami at Texas A&M and Alabama at Oklahoma.
- Tulane and James Madison claimed berths as conference champions, with JMU becoming the first Sun Belt team to reach the CFP.
- Selection chair Hunter Yurachek said Miami moved ahead of Notre Dame based on their head-to-head result after a final side-by-side review.
- Alabama made the field as a three-loss at-large, keeping five SEC teams in the bracket as debate over conference influence continued after Greg Sankey’s public push.