The first edition of the College Football Playoff rankings were released Tuesday night with undefeated Miami (FL) opening up the top spot ahead of Georgia. There’s just over a month left until the final bracket of the College Football Playoff is decided. So the Hurricanes will have to hold off not only the Bulldogs, but also the rest of the top 25 if they aim to maintain the top seed in the playoffs to have the best possible chance of qualifying for a second straight appearance at the CFP National Championship.
Having enjoyed a dominant start to the season, Miami has been forced to play closer games of late as its schedule has gotten tougher. To maintain first place, UM may have to go undefeated through the regular season, but even if it takes a loss, a second straight playoff appearance is likely after the Canes missed the playoffs in the first 11 years of its existence.
Nine of the 12 teams ranked No. 1 in a season’s initial CFP rankings ultimately reached the playoffs, an effort now made easier by the expanded 12-team field, which is being contested for a third and likely final season.
Miami is in a good position to go wire to wire, sitting at 8-0 (6-0 ACC) with one ranked win (Wake Forest) and just one game left against a top 25 team (November 7 at Notre Dame). No. 2 Georgia, meanwhile, is already 2-0 against ranked opponents this season, with three other wins on its schedule.
Notre Dame with one loss, without a quality win this season, is ranked 11th as the last team if the season ended today.
“Notre Dame ranked 11th is impressive. We are impressed with their performance on both sides of the football, they are very good,” said CFP President Hunter Yurachek. “But when you look at Notre Dame’s schedule, they don’t have that signature win right now. They lost at BYU, the next best win is against Wisconsin at a neutral site. The committee is very impressed with them; they wouldn’t be 11th if we weren’t.”
Utah, defending champion Indiana and Alabama round out the rest of the top five, with SEC teams occupying 10 of the top 25 positions in the rankings.
With the 12-team playoff model awarding automatic bids to the five highest-ranked conference champions, Boise State would occupy the last spot if the field was chosen today, as it is the only team in the CFP rankings at 25th.
Yurachek also explained the gap between fifth-ranked Alabama and No. 13 Tennessee despite the Vols’ 26-10 win over the Crimson Tide last month. He said Alabama and Tennessee have never been included in the same “pod,” so the head-to-head result has not yet been factored into the rankings.
Yurachek pointed out Alabama’s impressive track record with wins over Kentucky and South Carolina and mentioned that the Crimson Tide’s victory over then-Mississippi State was notable.
College Football Playoff Rankings, November 3
~ Goodbye to the first round
- Miami (FL) (8-0) ~
- Georgia (7-1) ~
- Utah (8-0) ~
- Indiana (7-1) ~
- Alabama (6-2)
- Kentucky (7-1)
- Texas (6-2)
- UCLA (8-0)
- BYU (7-1)
- Ole Miss (6-2)
- Notre Dame (7-1)
- Ohio State (6-2)
- Tennessee (6-2)
- LSU (6-2)
- Texas Tech (7-1)
- Wake Forest (7-1)
- Houston (6-2)
- Missouri (6-2)
- Iowa (6-2)
- USC (7-2)
- South Carolina (5-3)
- Arizona (6-2)
- Oregon (5-3)
- Florida (5-3)
- Boise State (7-1)
Takeaways from the first CFP ranking
The selection committee’s first rankings provide a soft starting point, with stress tests coming the rest of the month for national championship contenders, starting with two undefeated on the road, one-loss hopefuls with opportunity and a few teams on the bubble.
Various metrics of record strength and conference strength reveal the SEC’s dominance this season with both data points, which were clearly valued as a point of emphasis this week. Five SEC teams found spots in the CFP’s inaugural top 10, the most of any Power Four league.
It’s not a question of if this season, but who will be the first three-loss at-large selection who didn’t play in their conference championship game. Only Alabama, as SEC runner-up, and Clemson, as an automatic qualifier for the ACC champion, reached the CFP with three losses.
There’s a chance we see two 9-3 teams if the rest of the season is ripe with the parity we’ve seen over the first two months. However, in the expanded era, no team ranked outside of the initial top 18 of the first rankings appeared in the final bracket.
The sample size is small just two years into the 12-team bracket, but it’s a factor to watch going forward. There is work to be done over the next four weeks for the teams with this distinction this week, as well as the chaos that awaits them in the standings.
You know who you are.
The quest for multiple Big 12 offers
With two top 10 teams — Utah at No. 3 and BYU at No. 9 — as of Tuesday night and Texas Tech sitting just beyond the draft line at No. 15, the selection committee tells us they’re not too fond of the Big 12 and its data points…yet. BYU and Texas Tech each have two ranked wins, while Utah’s only top-25 win came against Houston on October 24. That’s more than LSU, Notre Dame, UCLA and Wake Forest. combined.
Saturday’s BYU-Utah result in Salt Lake City provides an upset for next week but doesn’t change the fact that these two teams are at the top of the league’s food chain in the multi-offer conversation. If Texas Tech and BYU win and Utah beats BYU in the Big 12 Championship Game rematch, there’s a legitimate chance the league takes three teams to the CFP. Utah would have the head-to-head tiebreaker against Texas Tech for a spot in the finals because the Utes beat Cincinnati – the Red Raiders’ only loss.
A traffic jam with two defeats
As the selection committee’s highest-ranked two-loss team, fifth-ranked Alabama is the biggest surprise and finds itself in incredible form after the top seeding. The wins over South Carolina and Kentucky are the two marquee wins so far for the Crimson Tide, who are ahead of Texas, BYU, Kentucky and LSU, among others.
With a win Saturday at Missouri, the Longhorns would bring their national total of “ranked” wins to four and move closer to solidifying an at-large berth, but are behind Alabama in the top 25?
This doesn’t make any sense.
As with all the selection committee groups we’ve seen each of the last two years of the 12-team era, there appears to be a clear separation – at least for now – between the groups of other two-loss prospects. Behind Texas are Ole Miss and Ohio State, among others, and then there are a handful of two-loss teams: LSU, Tennessee, Houston, Missouri and USC.
Although all of these teams outside of the current top 10 have work to do, the quartet that includes Texas is in a prime position. Of course, all of that will change on Saturday given the slate of SEC matchups with significant implications in the CFP rankings:
- Texas to Missouri
- Kentucky to Tennessee
- Georgia at Ole Miss
- Alabama at LSU
No. 11 The difficult situation of Notre-Dame
Is the selection committee really going to give the Fighting Irish a pass and push them into the bracket if they fail to beat Miami this weekend? As it stands, Notre Dame has no wins over ranked teams and won’t get any in a few weeks against SMU after the Mustangs’ inexplicable loss to Syracuse. Saturday night’s game against the Hurricanes borders on must-win status for the Fighting Irish, considering their current seeding and the teams behind them that have multiple chances to improve their resume.
It should be mentioned that Notre Dame’s “CFP insurance” clause, signed last season, would keep the Fighting Irish as long as they finished in the top 12. Last season, Notre Dame was the first team to be eliminated after the selection committee ultimately weighed its loss to Miami in its final deliberations because the Fighting Irish had entered the same “cluster” as the Hurricanes for the first time.
Opinions for 12th-ranked Ohio State
It’s not yet time for the 12th-ranked Buckeyes’ obituary, but you can pick up your pen. As the selection committee showed, last weekend’s loss at USC didn’t erase everything that came before it — including wins at Indiana and Iowa — but it certainly hurt. There is also context. Ohio State used a freshman quarterback against the Trojans last time out after losing Julian Sayin to an elbow injury. That didn’t guarantee forgiveness from the selection committee, but it might help explain the inconsistent performance offensively. Opinion on Ohio State changes drastically if the Buckeyes fall to Oregon this weekend.
Bubble watch
As previously mentioned, the key number going forward – if data from the previous two years in the expanded playoffs is any indication – revolves around Nos. 19-25 in these rankings. None of the teams ranked in the first reveal ever reached the playoffs as an at-large selection. It’s a disappointing stat for teams like USC, Oregon and Florida, but any of them could theoretically force their way into the conversation by winning — especially the Trojans given remaining games against Indiana and UCLA, among others. And this season, which strangely resembles the unpredictable 2007 campaign, it is plausible.
No. 21 South Carolina found itself in a similar hole last season after falling just short in the final rankings despite riding a six-game winning streak before Selection Sunday. If the Gamecocks, after three defeats, won, it would be a seven matches winning streak this time around, highlighted by a victory over SEC leader Georgia in a matter of weeks.
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