TeamFB7 reacts to the second installment of the CFP rankings with more critiques for the selection committee.
The second edition of the College Football Playoff rankings were unveiled between games of an ESPN college basketball double-header on Tuesday night, and I wish I could say they were any less controversial than they were last week.
Georgia emerged as the No. 1 team in the rankings over unbeaten No. 2 Utah, and No. 3 Alabama is somehow ranked ahead of unbeaten No. 4 UCLA despite having two (!) losses. We’ll get to all that in a minute.
Notre Dame jumped back into the top five at No. 5 after beating top-ranked Miami on Saturday (without Malachi Toney), which knocked the one-loss Hurricanes down to No. 7, which is below another two-loss SEC team in No. 6 Texas.
Perhaps the most jarring consequence of last week’s results is Ohio State’s fall in the rankings, as the Buckeyes are very nearly eliminated from the playoff race at No. 20 after suffering a third loss, to Oregon. On the flip side, the Ducks are back in the picture at No. 16 thanks to the head-to-head win, which seemed improbable even just a week ago.
Regardless, here are a few thoughts on the CFP selection committee’s work this week.
What More Can UCLA Do?
I spent half the column last week ranting about how UCLA was ranked No. 8, and if you told me I’d be ranting again this week after they moved up to No. 4 I would have even thought you were a little crazy.
However, as we see blue blood after blue blood falter each weekend, many of them to teams worse than what the Bruins have faced, they get the benefit of the doubt and UCLA is discounted for beating what’s in front of them.
The media and the committee has made a case of holding on to the Bruins’ ugly, narrow 17-15 win over Oregon in a game where both teams were on to reserve quarterbacks. They don’t talk about the fact that UCLA has won every other game on its schedule by an average of 21.6 points.
For all the talk that UCLA would be doomed without Nico Iamaleava, Ty Dieffenbach and company have done enough to average 29.6 points per game in the Bruins’ last three. Oh, and they have the best strength of record in the country.
I’ll ask again, what more can they do?
I’m Not Mad At Indiana’s Ranking
One of the talking points that was immediately being parroted as some great injustice was the fact that Indiana, even on a bye week, fell five spots from No. 4 to No. 9. I’m not mad at it at all.
The Hoosiers’ last four wins have come by an average of 5.75 points per game and each of those wins came against opponents who are currently unranked.
Indiana has 9 B1G opponents on the schedule.
8 played this weekend.
They went 0-8. #iufb
— Ian Plaskoff (@ian_plaskoff) November 8, 2026
They also lost to Ohio State in that span, and that outcome has only aged worse since the moment it happened. I’d argue, based on the logic that the committee has used to punish UCLA, that Indiana shouldn’t even be in the top 10.
The real issue is, these Hoosiers are almost certainly going to get boat-raced by USC on Saturday but get to close the season with two cupcake games against Washington and Purdue that will probably catapult them back into the playoff picture.
I think I might actually be rooting for SEC bias in that case.
What Are We Doing With Kentucky?
I respect what Will Stein and the Kentucky Wildcats have done in Lexington this season, making an SEC contender out of a program that has historically been one of the conference’s bottom-feeders on the gridiron. But what in the world have they done to warrant being ranked No. 11 in the country?
Sure, I see the 7-2 record. I see that the only two losses on the Cats’ resume are losses to Alabama and Tennessee, two teams that find themselves in great position to make the College Football Playoff at 7-2. But I also see that Kentucky lost its head-to-head matchups to Tennessee and Alabama by 28 points and that it only has one win over a currently ranked team.
11-2 BYU was out of the CFP last year with wins over #15 Utah & #17 Arizona because they weren't competitive in two games with Texas Tech.
If 7-2 Kentucky is ranked top 11 Tuesday with two 28-point losses & no top 15 wins, it'll show how much the committee values the SEC logo.
— Graham Doeren Bracketology (@GrahamDoeren) November 8, 2026
Yeah, I know Texas A&M technically counted as a top 10 win at the time, but don’t bother me with that.
Maybe UCLA should get some of the benefit of the doubt we’re so desperate to give to Kentucky, and these rankings wouldn’t look so much like they were made with a spreadsheet of potential ad revenue on the projector screen.
