The first College Football Playoff rankings of the season did exactly what they were supposed to do: light the fuse.
Tuesday’s reveal on “College Football Top 25” didn’t line up with the AP Top 25, and that gap created plenty of noise right away. Notre Dame landed seven spots lower than it did in the AP poll.
Alabama checked in four spots higher. Indiana’s placement over Ohio State raised eyebrows.
And with Week 10 bringing seven games between CFP Top 25 teams, there’s already room for a major shakeup.
CFP committee chairman Hunter Yurachek said the board is only getting started.
"This has been such a crazy football season filled with unbelievable parity through the first eight weeks," Yurachek said on the ESPN telecast. "There are a number of football games to be played.
Just look at the matchups coming this weekend. … We're looking forward to the task at hand, and it will be a difficult task each week."
Still, the first rankings had a clear theme: plenty of teams got a boost, and plenty others got a reason to complain.
The SEC came out looking strong. The conference put 10 teams in the rankings, with five in the top 10 and all of them inside the projected 12-team field.
Georgia stayed at No. 2 in both polls, but every other SEC team was ranked higher by the committee than by the AP. Alabama jumped from No. 9 to No.
5, Kentucky moved from No. 8 to No. 6, Texas from No. 10 to No.
7, Ole Miss from No. 12 to No. 10, Tennessee from No. 16 to No.
13, LSU from No. 15 to No. 14, Missouri from No. 19 to No.
18, South Carolina from No. 23 to No. 21 and Florida from No. 25 to No. 24.
That’s not going to quiet the “SEC bias” talk. If anything, it feeds it. The committee has the SEC as the deepest league in the country right now, and the rankings reflect that view with the conference’s highest one-loss team, highest two-loss team and highest three-loss team all sitting in strong positions for the stretch run.
Indiana’s spot at No. 4 was another headline-grabber. The Hoosiers are the highest-ranked Big Ten team, even though they’ve already lost head-to-head to Ohio State and even though UCLA is the league’s only unbeaten team.
Indiana has survived with four one-score wins in Big Ten play, including a 23-16 overtime escape against Minnesota in Week 9, and it doesn’t have a win against any team in this current Top 25. Curt Cignetti’s team is still in position for a third straight College Football Playoff appearance with a 10-win season, and that could get even firmer with a win against No.
20 USC on Nov. 14.
For the playoff formats that came before the 12-team era, this ranking release would have been a gold mine. A four-team field would be simple at this point, with the four Power 4 champions taking the spots.
The old Bowl Championship Series would have No. 1 Miami and No.
2 Georgia at the top, with Miami becoming the 11th different school to hold the No. 1 spot in CFP rankings since the system began in 2014. Supporters of a 24-team playoff would point to the same thing: the rankings are messy, but all of these teams would still be in the conversation anyway.
The biggest loser, though, might be Notre Dame.
The Irish are sitting seven spots lower in the CFP rankings than in the AP Top 25, and Yurachek explained why during the ESPN broadcast.
"They are a very good football team, but when you look at Notre Dame's schedule and the wins that they have vs. the teams that are ahead of them, they don't have that signature win right now," Yurachek said.
That sets up Saturday’s matchup with Miami as a massive one. It’s the best meeting between those programs since “Catholics vs.
Convicts” in 1988, and while the AP Top 25 treats it like a top-five game, the committee’s ranking makes it feel like a must-win for Notre Dame. If the Irish lose, getting back into the top 12 could become a serious problem.
The ranking itself is hard to ignore. Notre Dame has won seven games by an average of 31.4 points per game, and its lone loss was a 28-24 defeat to No.
9 BYU on the final play. The Irish are also a 5.5-point favorite against the Hurricanes this weekend.
Ohio State is in a similar bind. The Buckeyes are the first team out of the projected 12-team bracket, and the committee had to explain the 30-18 loss to USC in Week 8. Yurachek was asked whether freshman quarterback Luke Fahey taking over for injured starter Julian Sayin was a factor.
"I don't want the burden all on the freshman quarterback," Yurachek said. "Their offense played fairly well. They were held to four field goals through three-and-a-half quarters, but their defense gave up some really big, explosive plays."
Ohio State still has a path, and it runs through November. Oregon is the last ranked team left on the Buckeyes’ schedule, and four wins this month would likely put them in the Big Ten championship game. But the message from the committee is clear: a three-loss Ohio State team is probably not getting in.
The Group of 6 picture was familiar, too. Boise State is the only Group of 6 team in the rankings at No. 25, while New Mexico was left out. That keeps the debate alive over whether the automatic berth for the top Group of 6 team is really helping the playoff field, especially when a Power 4 at-large hopeful could be squeezed out.
And this doesn’t look like a year when multiple Group of 6 teams break through. Last season, Tulane and James Madison both got in and lost their first-round games by an average of 24 points.
Here’s the full CFP Top 25 heading into Week 10: Miami, Georgia, Utah, Indiana, Alabama, Kentucky, Texas, UCLA, BYU, Ole Miss, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Tennessee, LSU, Texas Tech, Wake Forest, Houston, Missouri, Iowa, USC, South Carolina, Arizona, Oregon, Florida and Boise State.
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