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In a fourth-floor conference room inside the Gaylord Hotel, just north of the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, 13 members of the College Football Playoff selection committee began their meetings Monday and will meet all day Tuesday before producing , for the first time this season, his Top 25 ranking.
None of that is really new. This is the eleventh year of the same process.
What’s new: They are creating rankings that will be applied, at the end of the season, not to a four-team playoff but to a 12-team playoff. However, their rankings are not expected to reflect the change in the playoffs. They will rank teams as they normally have: top 25 teams in that order, regardless of conference affiliation, etc.
For all of us on the outside looking in, we’ll apply those rankings to the new 12-team playoff format. Here are the rules of the new format:
– Rule 1: The five highest-ranked conference champions automatically qualify for the field.
– Rule 2: The four highest-ranked conference champions are seeded 1-4 and get a first-round bye (to re-emphasize this: teams that did not win their conference championship cannot get a bye and cannot be ranked better than No. 5).
– Rule 3: After the four highest-ranked conference champions are seeded, the next seven highest-ranked teams advance to the field through at-large berths and are seeded in the order of their seeding. The fifth-highest-ranked conference champion is also ranked based on their seeding order.
– Other details:
(1) Independents, like Notre Dame, are not eligible to receive a top-four seed or a bye.
(2) First round games between numbers 5-12, 6-11, 7-10 and 8-9 are played on December 20 and 21 at the site of the top seed.
(3) The quarterfinals, this year, take place in the Fiesta Bowl (assigned Big 12 champion), Peach Bowl (ACC champion), Rose Bowl (Big Ten champion), and Sugar Bowl (SEC champion).
Do you have all that? It can be confusing, as the committee’s rankings likely don’t correlate with the playoff bracket’s ranking. For example, if this year’s Big 12 champion is ranked No. 7 and is the fourth-highest-ranked conference champion, that team is ranked No. 4. Here’s another example: If the loser of the Big 12 championship game the SEC is ranked #3 and is the highest ranked non-championship team, that team is ranked #5.
Now, let’s get to some themes we’ll be watching in the CFP standings as they relate to the 12-team field. We can learn a lot about the committee’s thinking in three areas:
(1) The hierarchical order of the power conference.
(2) Notre Dame, bubble teams competing for at-large spots.
(3) The race for the access position to the fifth conference championship (G5).
The hierarchical order of the power conference
The polls are pretty clear about which team is #1.
Oregon earned all 62 first-place votes available in the latest AP poll. But who is next? And how far down the standings are the Big 12 and top ACC teams?
These are key questions as the four power leagues compete for the top four spots, and they give us a window into what the committee thinks about the overall strength of each conference (that’s important for later, when at-large spots are decided between teams with similar or the same records from different conferences).
In the AP Poll, the top-ranked team in the ACC is Miami at No. 4 and the top-ranked team in the Big 12 is BYU at No. 9. The number of spots separating BYU and Boise State (probably the top-ranked team in the Group of Five) is a big, big deal. It gives us a window into the likelihood that Boise actually overtakes a power league champion for the No. 4 seed. It seems unlikely without an upset in a championship game (like, say, a two-loss Colorado win over BYU in the Big 12 title fight). But it is not ruled out.
At the top of the standings, the power conference pecking order can also give us an idea of which teams could endure a second loss and still earn an overall spot. In the AP poll, the second-best teams in the SEC and Big Ten are Texas (No. 5) and Ohio State (No. 3). The third-best team in the SEC is Tennessee (No. 7) and among the Big Ten is Penn State (No. 6). Will the selection committee agree on the pecking order of those four potential non-champions? It’s important.
And where are the second best teams in the ACC and the Big 12? Is there a chance for either league to be a two-bid conference? The Big 12 finds itself in the most dangerous position by shutting out its second-best team. Iowa State is ranked 17th in the AP poll. The second best team in the ACC is SMU. The AP poll ranks the Mustangs at No. 13 (two spots out of one overall spot, which we discuss below).
Notre Dame and the bubble teams
Notre Dame’s standings will be one of the most fascinating topics on Tuesday night. The Irish, for starters, are polarizing as the last blue-blood independent standing in college football. But they also have what is probably the worst loss of any playoff contender: at home to a Northern Illinois team that is now 4-4 on the season.
As a reminder, the Irish’s only path to the playoffs is one of the seven at-large spots. They can’t get a bye and a top-four seed. If you’re wondering how that came about, look to former Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick, who embraced the concept during deliberations with CFP commissioners in 2021, when the playoff format was introduced. In retrospect, it’s pretty smart. The Irish don’t have to play a 13th game and can still punch their ticket as long as they finish high enough in the standings.
In the AP poll, Notre Dame is ranked No. 10, squarely on the bubble for an at-large bid. If the 12-team format were applied to the AP poll, the Irish would travel as the No. 10 seed to play No. 7 seed Penn State.
Who else is in the bubble? Alabama, with two losses and ranked 11th in the AP poll, would earn last place overall if the 12-team bracket applied. SMU is one spot behind that. Three SEC teams follow with two losses in LSU, Texas A&M and Ole Miss, and next is Iowa State with one loss. The Tide and Tigers meet this weekend in Baton Rouge, the first true elimination game between two playoff contenders this year. The loser is almost certainly eliminated.
But will the committee agree with AP’s order? How do you differentiate between those four teams with two losses? Well, start with the fact that A&M beat LSU and LSU beat Ole Miss. So the pecking order behind Alabama seems obvious: Texas A&M, LSU, Ole Miss. The Aggies should support the Tigers in the game against Alabama. Ole Miss’ 3-6 home loss to Kentucky hurts, and the strength of Iowa State’s schedule ranking (36th in Sagarin) does it no favors. But don’t forget this: The Cyclones won against an Iowa team that is 4-2 in the Big Ten.
There are a few other teams with a chance to enter the bubble, including Clemson, with two losses, perhaps, and Pitt, with one loss (they’ll meet next week, by the way). But the most intriguing of the potential bubble teams is none other than Washington State, one of the remnants of the old Pac-12.
The Cougars are 7-1 with wins over a 5-4 Big Ten team (Washington) and a 6-3 Big 12 team (Texas Tech), and their only loss is to the No. 12 team in the country (Boise). Washington State, ranked 20th in the AP, is not eligible to receive a qualifier for the conference championship and must finish high enough in the standings to earn an at-large berth. Do you have a chance? If the committee ranks them in, say, the top 16 on Tuesday, they might have a chance, despite a near-Group of Five schedule.
The G5 race
Boise State will almost certainly be the committee’s highest-ranked Group of Five team, setting up the Broncos to advance to the playoffs if they win their remaining regular-season games and the Mountain West championship.
Behind Heisman Trophy contender running back Ashton Jeanty, that shouldn’t be a big problem. Only one of his last four opponents has a winning record. The Mountain West title game will likely be against UNLV or Colorado State. Boise State already beat the first of them and the Rams lost to Oregon State.
But what if the Broncos stumble along the way? The American Athletic Conference champion hopes to steal the bid, maybe. Army, ranked 18th in the AP, is undefeated, and although the Black Knights have the lowest-ranked schedule of any G5 playoff contender, they have a big opportunity on Nov. 23: a game against Notre Dame in the Yankee Stadium.
A win there could suddenly have the selection committee toying with the idea of edging Army over Boise State in its rankings. Boise State’s best win is actually a loss: a three-point loss to top-ranked Oregon. The Broncos also won at UNLV, which beat mid-12 teams Kansas and Houston.
When the committee rankings are revealed, pay attention to how close (or far apart) Boise State and Army are. And where is Tulane? The Green Wave has two losses, but both were relatively close and against Kansas State and Oklahoma. Another CFP candidate: Louisiana. The Cajuns are a surprising 7-1 and lead the Sun Belt. They won at Wake Forest and lost a close game to Tulane.