The debut College Football Playoff rankings are a roadmap we can use to evaluate how the selection committee compares Power Four conferences, and specifically how the committee initially assesses teams with similar résumés in the SEC and Big Ten.
Based on Tuesday night’s release, the committee is impressed with the best of the best in the Big Ten — No. 1 Ohio State and No. 2 Indiana — but even more taken with the depth in the SEC, which follows with No. 3 Texas A&M, No. 4 Alabama, No. 5 Georgia and No. 6 Mississippi. Overall, the SEC has nine teams in the top 25 to the Big Ten’s seven.
Another sign the committee has a higher opinion of the SEC is No. 9 Oregon, which came in behind three one-loss SEC teams despite losing only to Indiana. Penn State’s implosion has been costly for the Ducks, whose best win to date is against Northwestern.
While the committee is rightfully taken with the Buckeyes and Hoosiers, it’s clear the SEC wins the head-to-head comparison with the Big Ten. That’s one key factor to keep in mind as the committee weighs late-season results from these Power Four heavyweights and eventual picks between teams with identical records hailing from different conferences.
The SEC and the ACC lead the winners and losers from the debut playoff rankings:
Winners
Ohio State and Indiana
Being No. 1 in the playoff rankings is nothing new for Ohio State, which has now spent six weeks in the top spot, tied with Oregon for the fourth-most by any team in the playoff era. To land at No. 2 in these rankings is new ground for Indiana, of course, reflecting the program’s intense growth in two seasons under coach Curt Cignetti. Importantly, the debut rankings serve as confirmation: Ohio State and Indiana are the surest bets to make the playoff from the Power Four, with wiggle room to lose once and still finish in the top four and earn an opening-round bye.
The SEC
For the SEC, four playoff spots could be sealed before the conference championship game should A&M, Alabama, Georgia and Ole Miss go unbeaten in November. At a minimum, the wealth of ranked SEC teams should leave the conference feeling extremely confident about sending four teams into the bracket for the second year in a row. Admittedly, the league’s overall depth could be trimmed beginning this weekend: No. 22 Missouri would be virtually eliminated with a loss to A&M, as would No. 16 Vanderbilt with a loss to Auburn. Next week’s slate sends Oklahoma to Tuscaloosa and Texas to Athens.
Notre Dame
The No. 10 Fighting Irish will spend the rest of November in win-and-in mode after squeezing in ahead of a pair of two-loss SEC teams in No. 11 Texas and No. 12 Oklahoma. This specific ranking is important: Notre Dame can only make the playoff as an at-large selection and one of the 12 spots in the bracket is reserved for the Group of Five, so coming in at No. 10 despite losses to A&M and No. 18 Miami means a clean sweep of the regular season will almost certainly send the defending national runner-up back to the playoff.
Brigham Young and Texas Tech
Take a picture, because this won’t last long: No. 7 BYU and No. 8 Texas Tech meet this weekend in Lubbock, giving the winner more ammunition to climb in next week’s rankings but sending the loser tumbling down — especially if that’s the Red Raiders, who previously lost to Arizona State. Having a pair of teams in the top eight is a big development for the Big 12, which did not have two teams simultaneously in top 15 at any point last season.
Losers
The Group of Five
That there were no Group of Five teams in the top 25 doesn’t really matter in the big picture, since the committee will eventually have to choose the best conference champion from outside the four major leagues to round out the bracket. This is more of a perception issue, reflecting the committee’s lack of admiration for the specific teams consideration, such as Memphis and North Texas, and the lack of a Boise State-like national brand in the mix.
The ACC
The highest-ranked team from the ACC is No. 14 Virginia, one of three one-loss teams from the conference to crack the rankings, joining No. 15 Louisville and No. 17 Georgia Tech, and one of five ACC teams in the overall top 25. This can be framed as a positive, since while the conference lacks a top-notch playoff contender the conference could have multiple teams with two or fewer losses at the end of the season. But to have nine combined teams from the Big Ten and SEC in front of the Cavaliers speaks to the increasingly low odds the ACC has of sending more than two teams into the field and the non-zero chance the league sends only the conference champion.
Miami and Georgia Tech
A good chunk of the blame for this predicament can be placed on No. 18 Miami, which has dropped two of three to erase the goodwill stemming from non-conference wins against Notre Dame and South Florida. To be eight spots behind the Fighting Irish spells curtains for the Hurricanes’ at-large hopes. Meanwhile, losing to North Carolina State damaged Georgia Tech’s credibility with the selection committee, which placed the Yellow Jackets last among the nine one-loss teams in the rankings. The reasoning is simple: Wake Forest and Duke are the only two victories against Power Four opponents with a winning record and Tech no longer draws any major positives from early-season victories against Colorado and Clemson. But the Jackets do draw No. 24 Pittsburgh and Georgia at home to end the regular season, so an at-large bid could still be in play before heading to Charlotte for the ACC championship game.