Oregon would receive a coveted top-four seed and Texas A&M would play a first-round home game in the biggest changes to the College Football Playoff mock bracket based on the latest Associated Press Top 25.
Texas A&M slipped from No. 3 to No. 7 in Sunday's AP poll, allowing Oregon to move up one spot to No. 4. That would give the Big Ten three of the top four seeds, with Ohio State No. 1 and Indiana No. 2. Georgia of the SEC would be No. 3. Top-four seeds earn byes to the quarterfinals.
Now that the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game matchup is set, Virginia would bump Miami out of the bracket as the league’s highest-ranked team in the AP poll (Virginia will play unranked Duke in the title game). Miami had held that spot in last week's bracket while still alive for the conference title game.
The Southeastern Conference has five of the 12 teams on the bracket. The Big Ten has three teams and the Big 12, ACC and Sun Belt one each. Notre Dame would be in as an independent. The CFP committee will release its fourth rankings of the season Tuesday night.
Based on the AP Top 25, the CFP would open like this:
— No. 9 seed Notre Dame at No. 8 seed Oklahoma. Winner vs. No. 1 Ohio State.
— No. 12 seed James Madison at No. 5 Texas Tech. Winner vs. No. 4 Oregon.
— No. 10 seed Alabama at No. 7 Texas A&M. Winner vs. No. 2 Indiana.
— No. 11 seed Virginia at No. 6 Mississippi. Winner vs. No. 3 Georgia.
The first three teams outside the bracket: BYU, Miami and Vanderbilt.
BYU is ranked No. 11 by the AP but would get bumped by Virginia of the ACC. Miami is No. 12 in the AP poll but would be bumped to make room for Group of Five representative James Madison of the Sun Belt.
The five highest-ranked conference champions automatically qualify for the CFP, but no longer do the four highest-ranked champions receive a first-round bye. The 12-team bracket is now seeded directly based on the CFP’s final rankings on Dec. 7.
The top four seeds will be assigned to quarterfinals in ranking order and in consideration of current bowl relationships. This year, quarterfinal winners advance to the semifinals at the Fiesta Bowl and the Peach Bowl. The No. 1 seed would receive preferential placement based on geography.
Teams ranked Nos. 5-12 by the CFP will play in the first round, with the higher seeds hosting the lower seeds either on campus or at other sites designated by the higher-seeded school. First-round games are Dec. 19 and 20, quarterfinals Dec. 31 and Jan. 1, semifinals Jan. 8 and 9 and the championship game is Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here and here (AP News mobile app). AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
Georgia defensive back Ellis Robinson IV (1) intercepts the ball from Georgia Tech wide receiver Dean Patterson (11) during the second half of an NCAA college football game, Friday, Nov. 28, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Oregon defensive back Brandon Finney reacts after breaking up a pass in the end zone against Washingtonduring the second half of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
BUNIA, Congo (AP) — Authorities in northeastern Congo banned funeral wakes and gatherings of more 50 people Friday in an effort to curb a rapidly spreading Ebola outbreak in a region where medical workers have struggled with a lack of resources and pushback from angry residents.
The World Health Organization said that the outbreak now poses a “very high" risk for Congo — up from a previous categorization of “high” — but that the risk of the disease spreading globally remains low.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 82 cases and seven deaths have been confirmed in Congo, but that the outbreak is believed to be “much larger."
There is no available vaccine for the Bundibugyo virus, which spread undetected for weeks in Congo's Ituri Province following the first known death while authorities tested for another, more common, Ebola virus and came up negative. There are now 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths, though more are expected as surveillance expands.
“We are trying to catch up,” Congo Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner told the AP. “It is a race against the clock."
Supplies were being rushed to Ituri in the northeastern corner of the country, where nearly a million people have been displaced by armed conflicts over mineral resources. Ramping up contact tracing is a priority, Kayikwamba Wagner said.
In the provincial capital of Bunia, AP reporters saw empty emergency treatment centers, and doctors in the nearby town of Bambu using expired medical masks while tending to suspected Ebola patients.
The provincial government said Friday it was temporarily banning wakes and gatherings of more than 50 people. It said funerals must be conducted in strict compliance with health protocols. The authorities also required journalists to obtain a permit to report on the outbreak, impeding their work.
The illness also has been reported in two Congolese provinces to the south of Ituri — North Kivu and South Kivu, where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group controls many key cities, including Goma and Bukavu, where the rebels reported two cases.
The group said Friday it was creating a crisis team to fight the outbreak.
Kayikwamba Wagner said having the illness in rebel-held areas was alarming because “M23 is, despite whatever ambitions they may have, thoroughly ill equipped" to fight the disease.
She said the Congo government and rebels were not communicating on the outbreak.
The efforts of health officials and aid groups have met with pushback from communities due to misinformation or situations where medical policy has clashed with local customs such as burial rites.
On Thursday, an Ebola treatment center in Rwampara was set on fire by youths who were angered when they were blocked from retrieving the body of a friend who apparently had died of Ebola, according to witnesses and police.
The dangerous work of burying suspected victims is being managed wherever possible by authorities, because the bodies can be highly contagious and lead to further spread when they are prepared for burial or when people gather for funerals.
Julienne Lusenge, president of Women’s Solidarity for Inclusive Peace and Development, a local aid group, said the population’s anger is mostly due to misinformation. “We have lived through years and years of conflict and hardship so rumors spread easily,” she said.
She said some churches have told their congregations the outbreak is fake and that divine protection makes medical care unnecessary.
In the Ituri province mining town of Mongbwalu where the outbreak is believed to have originated, Lokana Moro Faustin lost his 16-year-old daughter to the disease and bemoaned the fact that he was not able to give her a proper goodbye because of Ebola restrictions.
“At first, we thought it was malaria. But then came vomiting, a high fever, nosebleeds, and bloody diarrhea,” he said, grief-stricken.
The teenager died on May 15 and her body was taken from the hospital by specialized teams and taken directly to the cemetery for a secure burial. Faustin was not able to say goodbye because he was in self-isolation, and it pained him to have his daughter buried by people who were not family.
The United Nations said Friday it released $60 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund to accelerate the response in Congo and in the region.
The U.S. has pledged $23 million in funding to bolster the response in Congo and Uganda, and said it would also fund the establishment of up to 50 Ebola treatment clinics in the affected regions.
Lusenge said her group’s small hospital near in Bunia lacks basic protective equipment, exposing nurses and doctors to possible infection, she said. “We only have hand sanitizer and a few masks for the nurses, but we need much more than that," Lusenge said.
Both the WHO and Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believe the outbreak is larger than the cases reported so far.
The region’s already-weak health infrastructure and surveillance capacity has been further weakened by international aid cuts, experts say. The International Rescue Committee said it had to stop its surveillance activities in three out of five areas in Ituri over the last year because of funding cuts.
Armed conflict in the region further complicates efforts to handle the crisis. To get from Bunia to Mongbwalu, aid groups have to brace for potential attacks from armed groups.
“The outbreak can still be contained but the window for action is narrow,” Gabriela Arenas from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Friday.
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Pronczuk reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva; Constant Same Bagalwa in Bunia, Congo; Jean Yves Kamale in Kinshasa, Congo; Mark Banchereau and Wilson McMakin in Dakar, Senegal contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Charred hospital beds stand in smoldering Ebola treatment center in Rwampara, Congo, Thursday, May 21, 2026, after it was set fire by people angry at being stopped from retrieving a body, according to a witness and police. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
Flames and smoke rise from an Ebola treatment center in Rwampara, Congo, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
Medical staff carry an Ebola patient to a treatment center in Rwampara, Congo, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)
A person is wearing a protective face mask in front of the WHO logo, during the media regarding the epidemic of Ebola disease, during a press conference at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, May 22, 2026. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP)
