The initial CFP rankings will be revealed Tuesday night, and TeamFB7 brings you a look at what they should look like.
The College Football Playoff selection committee releases its first set of rankings Tuesday night, officially signifying the final march these next five weeks to setting the 12-team field.
As the committee showed last year, the initial rankings don’t necessarily mean anything, however.
As college football fans well remember, Miami was behind Notre Dame in each of the CFP rankings until the final one last year. Suddenly, the Hurricanes’ Week 1 head-to-head win over the Fighting Irish truly factored in for the first time, leaving Notre Dame fuming on the outside of the bracket.
Also, rankings of any kind have never been more tenuous or fleeting in the sport than this season when the top teams seem to lose every week and chaos reigns across college football.
Except for Miami, which seems intent on not leaving its playoff berth to chance this time around (despite a scare last week vs. Bill Belichick’s North Carolina Tar Heels).
Questions Facing CFP Selection Committee
What the first CFP rankings release — 7 p.m. ET on ESPN — will show is how the committee is weighing teams with significant injury losses like 6-2 Ohio State, which is suddenly a bubble team with QB Julian Sayin’s indefinite (likely but not officially season-ending) shoulder injury.
Back when it was still a four-team playoff, Florida State was infamously snubbed from the field despite being undefeated, all because the committee diminished the Seminoles’ playoff case in the wake of QB Jordan Travis’ season-ending injury. It was no longer about everything Florida State had tangibly accomplished over three months but rather what the committee intangibly deemed it was unlikely to replicate without its QB.
Well, Ohio State lost its first game without Sayin pretty convincingly, falling 30-18 on the road at USC with true freshman QB Luke Fahey making his first start. The Buckeyes are No. 11 in the AP poll, which doesn’t have any direct bearing on the CFP rankings.
That’s one question to be answered Tuesday night.
Others include how much respect the other remaining unbeaten teams, aside from Miami, receive. Utah (8-0) is No. 3 in the AP poll while UCLA (7-0) is No. 5.
Notre Dame Again Could Be In The Middle Of CFP Mess
And then there’s Notre Dame in the center of potentially fresh CFP controversy.
Just like last season with the committee not seeming to know what to do with that loss to Miami relative to the Irish’s overall resume, well, here we go again.
Notre Dame lost 28-24 on the road at BYU two weeks ago but has won every other game by double digits — and most by several touchdowns despite playing a rather light schedule outside of that trip to Provo, Utah.
The Cougars have the same 7-1 record as the Irish, though, with a more glaring loss to UCF two weeks ago (following the high of that win over the Irish with an immediate letdown, in line with the script to this college football season at large.)
Yet, Notre Dame is ranked No. 4 in the AP poll this week while BYU is No. 7. Will the CFP committee also ignore the head-to-head win yet again, setting up a controversial situation down the road?
As for the CFP rankings, ultimately the 12-team playoff field does not simply come from the top 12 spots.
That will consist of the conference champions from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC, the highest-ranked program from the Group of 6 conferences (AAC, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12, Sun Belt) and the next seven highest-ranked teams. Controversially, and because of that 2025 snubbing, Notre Dame is guaranteed a spot if it is in the top 12 of the CFP rankings.
While the committee will release a full top 25, we’ll keep our breakdown to how the top 12 should look for this week. Assuming the four power conference champions come from this group, that would mean one team would be the odd one out to make for the top Group of 6 team.
How The First CFP Rankings Should Look
(This is not what we think the CFP committee WILL do but what it SHOULD do.)
1. Miami (8-0): One of three unbeaten teams, the Hurricanes have largely been dominant but not invulnerable. They were pushed to double-overtime by Florida State and narrowly won 38-25 over North Carolina last week.
2. Utah (8-0): We’ll going against the grain here and will surely rile up the SEC folk. The Utes have faced only one ranked opponent and won 21-13 over then-No. 14 Houston, but they’ve been mostly dominant otherwise (all but two wins by at least 14 points), have a veteran QB in Devon Dampier, an elite RB in Wayshawn Parker and a solid defense that ranks 15th in points allowed (15.9/game). Their standing in the rankings will hinge largely on the outcome this week in their showdown with BYU. So there’s no harm in ranking Utah this highly, even if the committee has questions about its overall resume. If the Utes beat the Cougars, they will absolutely have earned this spot. And if they don’t, they can be moved down accordingly next week.
3. Georgia (7-1): A 27-24 loss to Auburn is the only blemish while a 20-17 road win at Alabama and blowout wins over Oklahoma and Florida strengthen the Bulldogs’ resume.
4. BYU (7-1): That’s right, we’re doing what the CFP committee didn’t last year and probably won’t again this time around — honoring a major head-to-head win as it directly relates to the two teams involved. Yes, BYU took a bad loss to UCF the following week, but it came in double overtime. The Cougars have also been without reigning Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year LJ Martin, who is hoping to return from an ankle injury this week for the big showdown with Utah. The committee can freshly evaluate BYU and Notre Dame after the results of their respective marquee matchups this week.
5. Notre Dame (7-1): The Irish’s best win is over … Wisconsin? North Carolina? Sure, Notre Dame has been dominant in its seven victories — all by double figures — but beating up on the likes of Rice, Michigan State, Purdue, Stanford, a down Navy team, etc., doesn’t reveal a lot. Playing No. 1 Miami this Saturday will. The most complicated scenario here is BYU beating Utah and Notre Dame beating Miami, in which case … the committee would have a tough decision but not the same quagmire as last year when the Irish dilemma concerned the final spot in the playoff field.
6. UCLA (8-0): The Bruins scored a win over Oregon when it was still ranked, but otherwise they haven’t faced a lot of resistance on their way to 8-0. They also lost starting QB Nico Iamaleava for the season, though backup Ty Dieffenbach may actually be better and the Bruins’ identity is built on its dominant rushing attack (12th nationally at 219.50 rushing yards per game) anyway.
7. Indiana (8-1): The Hoosiers don’t have the same mystique they did on their undefeated national championship run last year. Nothing has come easy for Indiana, which got pushed for four quarters by Northwestern and Nebraska, needed overtime to beat Michigan and Minnesota and lost 19-15 to Ohio State. Nonetheless, the Hoosiers are one step out of bounds in the end zone from being unbeaten. They’re still elite defensively (third nationally in scoring defense at 12.4 PPG allowed) even if the offense is far from it and they know how to win.
8. Kentucky (7-1): Since a Week 2 loss to Alabama, Kentucky has ripped off SEC wins over Texas A&M, South Carolina, LSU, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt with another big test against ranked Tennessee on tap this week.
The CFP Rankings Bubble
(This is where the rankings get congested and could justifiably unfold in any number of ways … The selection committee truly has a tangled mess to straighten out from this point in the rankings on …)
9. Alabama (6-2): Alabama lost back-to-back games to Georgia and Tennessee (26-10 in a particularly humbling outcome) before bouncing back with a 31-20 win over Texas A&M. But its top-end upside with star freshman QB Keelon Russell is what gives it the edge here. The Crimson Tide beat Kentucky 45-17 in Week 2 (setting up another dilemma for the committee here, but one that will likely sort itself out over the final weeks) and have a 49-18 win over South Carolina that is suddenly looking better and better by the week. The Tide also dominated Mississippi State 56-23 when the Bulldogs were ranked No. 16 before QB Kamario Taylor‘s season-ending injury. Alabama plays No. 15-ranked LSU this week, so again, either a win will validate its standing here or a loss will move the Tide down the CFP rankings next week. For now, this feels right.
10. Wake Forest (7-1): The Demon Deacons surely won’t be this high in the actual CFP rankings, but they deserve to be. Their lone loss came 33-20 to Miami in Week 3, and since then they won at Louisville (when it was still ranked) and then have blown out everyone else — 57-3 over Stanford, 38-14 at NC State, 41-7 at Cal, 51-7 over Virginia.
11. Texas (6-2): The most volatile and unpredictable team on this list, thanks to its erratic high-profile QB Arch Manning. But the reality is Texas beat Ohio State when it was at full strength and ranked No. 1, and the Longhorns also have wins over ranked Tennessee and Ole Miss teams while taking a pair of 3-point losses to Oklahoma and Florida.
12. Ohio State (6-2): The Buckeyes have marquee wins at Indiana and Iowa, lost by 1 on the road to Texas and then the defeat last week at USC in Fahey’s first start at QB. Ohio State’s margin for error is nil now, but this is still a strong all-around team with one of the best players in college football in WR Jeremiah Smith. Also, Fahey wasn’t bad vs. USC, completing 21 of 38 passes for 260 yards, 1 TD and 0 INTs. It was his first meaningful college action. The Buckeyes deserve further evaluation.
Fringe Teams: Texas Tech (7-1), Ole Miss (6-2), LSU (6-2), Tennessee (6-2), USC (7-2), Houston (6-2), Missouri (6-2).
Top Group of 6 team: Boise State (7-1) with New Mexico (7-1) close behind.
