First CFP Rankings Release- What to Watch For?

Tomorrow night is the first weekly rankings release from the college football playoff committee. Here are the things I’ll be on the lookout for that will inform my playoff model.

Ranking of G5 Teams

This is important for two reasons:

(1) Signaling of James Madison vs. American teams

The biggest unanswered question to me is how a committee would handle a 12-1 James Madison team compared to the American champ. My working theory is that a 1 loss American champ, or 2 loss Tulane, would get in over a 1 loss JMU. Right now the AP Poll has Memphis 22nd, JMU 27th, North Texas 30th and South Florida 31st. If JMU is ranked in the top 25, their playoff odds go up a good bit.

(2) Ranking of American teams relative to each other

If there’s a tie to determine who goes to the American title game (which is likely), the first tiebreaker is CFP rankings.

Considering how the committee values top-line wins, I wouldn’t be surprised if they diverge with the AP and put South Florida ahead of Memphis.

ACC- Where are Miami, Georgia Tech and Louisville Ranked?

Last year we saw mixed results as to whether a 2 loss ACC team would get into the playoff. 10-2 Miami did not make it, but 11-2 SMU (who picked up their second loss in the conference title game) did make it- the committee didn’t want to over-penalize them for losing the conference title game.

My guess is that this precedent holds in 2025. In my eyes, 10-2 Miami is a little worse than a coin flip to make it, and an 11-2 Louisville or Georgia Tech team that loses the ACC title game is probably in. A 10-2 Georgia Tech team that say, loses to Pitt but beats Georgia, could be in as well.

Let’s see where these teams stand relative to schools like Texas, Oklahoma, Vanderbilt and Missouri. If they’re behind Texas/Oklahoma but ahead of Vanderbilt/Missouri, I view that as a neutral result. Anything outside of that would be materially positive or negative.

I view Virginia as having a pretty slim at-large chance at this point so I’m less interested in their ranking.

Big 12- Where are BYU and Utah Ranked?

I think that a 2 bid Big 12 is still unlikely- mostly because I think Texas Tech will kill BYU, and BYU will probably lose one more game somewhere down the stretch.

There is some chance a 10-2 BYU or Utah team could get a bid (a more likely outcome is that an 11-2 BYU team with 2 losses to Texas Tech gets in). If either team is ranked higher than their AP poll rank (8th and 17th, respectively), I would view that as a win.