The second release of the College Football Playoff Rankings for the 2024 season figures to have some teams shifting around as a result of upset losses by Georgia and Miami. Five CFP-ranked teams lost overall, and only the Alabama win over LSU was not an upset.
The team I was most curious about was Indiana. The Hoosiers ended up eighth in the first rankings, a couple spots higher than I predicted. Now that they have won a competitive game, it will be interesting to see where the selection committee slots them.
Last week, the committee showed a strong commitment to honoring head-to-head results with only Alabama behind Georgia in the rankings as the exception as Georgia had the better record. That did not dissuade them from having then 6-3 Louisville ahead of 6-2 Clemson, though. This week’s exceptions are also because the losing team has a better record. Texas will be ahead of Georgia and Ole Miss will be above LSU. As the season continues, it will get harder to honor head-to-head results.
The top five-ranked conference champions automatically earn a CFP berth with the top four receiving first-round byes. The top seven remaining teams in the rankings will be slotted accordingly as at-large teams.
Before we get going, here are some of the criteria considered by the CFP besides a team’s record:
- Conference championships
- Head-to-head
- Strength of schedule
- Games against common opponents
- Results against ranked opponents
Thankfully, the committee’s definition of “ranked opponents” is different than the one you are used to hearing. The rankings used for that standard are the previous week’s CFP Rankings. They don’t use rankings at the time the game was played from their own rankings or any other poll.
In fact, the committee specifically forbids the use of any poll that has a preseason starting point, which excludes the AP Top 25 and Coaches Poll. Not only do they not try to mimic those polls, they do not even use them.
Trying to sort out strength of schedule is going to be more of a chore for the committee this season than in the past. Oh, sure, they will have a SOS metric to use, but getting into the details may cause some headaches. Now that the four major conferences each have 16 or more teams, you have teams playing widely diverse schedules within the conference.
In the Big Ten, Indiana only has one game on its schedule against a team in these rankings, which is at Ohio State on Nov. 23. After playing Big Ten East schedules for all those years, the Hoosiers were probably due for a break. Meanwhile, Purdue has already played two teams likely to be ranked in this week’s top 10 with two more on the horizon. The Boilermakers also played Illinois, which could end up in the final top 25. They also played projected No. 10 Notre Dame in nonconference play.
Notice also that “game control” is not listed among the criteria. It never has been, but that term comes out of the mouth of the committee chairman pretty regularly when talking about why a team is ranked where it is. Even if the chairman is not using that term specifically, he finds other ways to describe it.
Also, while scoring margin is not specifically a factor, the committee likes dominance, which is also a result of game control.
In the end, this is a subjective process guided by some objective data. There are 13 committee members and each may value the data points differently than their colleagues.
With all that in mind, here is what I think the rankings will look like this week. It is top heavy with SEC and Big Ten teams, but that is just where the power is in college football. Get used to it because the gap will more likely get bigger over time.
References to rankings refer to last week’s CFP Rankings. It is the only set or rankings used by the committee when looking at performance against ranked teams, which is not necessarily a huge factor. If a team has enough of those games, it will be reflected in the strength of schedule.
Note: This projection is based only on results to this point. It does not reflect the final forecast for the playoff. The complete bowl playoff and bowl projections through the end of the season can be found here.
College Football Playoff Rankings prediction
First five out (alphabetical order): Duke, Illinois, Pittsburgh (18), Tulane, UNLV
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