David HaleNov 4, 2025, 08:22 PM ETCloseCollege football reporter.Joined ESPN in 2012.Graduate of the University of Delaware.Follow on X
Ohio State takes No. 1 spot in 1st CFP rankings reveal (4:22)Check out who has landed where in the first College Football Playoff rankings of the year. (4:22)
This year, the committee has said it is considering a new “record strength” metric, designed to provide some math-based guidance in the process and to soon replace “game control” as the country’s most hated made-up statistic.
In other words, there’s a lot still in flux as we dive deeper into the final month of the season. But that means our anger toward the committee is just simmering for now, waiting for the rage to boil over in the weeks to come.
So, certainly the committee would feel some compassion for the Cougars this year and consider the Cougars with a bit more optimism, right?
Well, Team A is the committee’s No. 1 team, Ohio State. Surely, if another team’s résumé looks more or less the same, that team would be staring down a bye in the first round of the playoff, right?
Nope. Team B is BYU, and the Cougars sit behind three SEC teams with a loss, all three of which are ranked lower in ESPN’s strength of record metric.
Given that BYU has a massive showdown with Texas Tech upcoming, perhaps the committee just punted on any tough decisions on the Cougars for this week. After all, given how much love the committee has shown the Big Ten in these rankings, punting would be a fitting play.
We get it. As a conference, the ACC might, in fact, just be an episode of “Punk’d” that Ashton Kutcher started in 2008, then got distracted and forgot to let everyone know it was a prank. The conference’s train wreck in Week 10 certainly showed up in these rankings — more on that in a moment — but it’s almost as if the committee just threw Louisville into the mix, deciding the Cardinals were guilty by association.
Team B: No. 13 strength of record, No. 56 strength of schedule, three wins vs. SP+ top 40, best win vs. committee’s No. 18 team, lone loss to committee’s No. 14 team.
This is basically a coin flip, though given the additional wins vs. high-level opponents and a better loss, it would be hard to argue against Team B, right? Add to that, Team B’s lone loss came in double overtime in a game when it outgained its opponent by 150 yards. Surely, you would be on Team B’s side now, right?
Well, not surprisingly, Team B is Louisville. Team A is Texas Tech, ranked seven spots higher at No. 8.
There seems to be a desire to write Miami off because of two losses in the past three games and given the strife the team seems to be enduring on offense, perhaps that’s wise.
Instead, the committee has assigned Miami to the scrap heap now — which is a shame because Miami would probably have done this to itself anyway, and it’s so much funnier when it happens in the last game of the season.
A year ago, Boise State found its way into a first-round bye ahead of the champion of a Power 4 league, which was probably pretty embarrassing for that Power 4 league except that the ACC embarrasses itself often enough to be pretty well immune to shame.
The rules have changed this year. The top four conference champs aren’t guaranteed a first-round bye now. But that doesn’t seem to have stopped the committee from stacking the deck anyway, just to be safe.
Not one team outside the Power 4 found its way into these initial rankings, though the committee notes that Memphis currently is in the lead for the long Group of 5 playoff bid.
In the committee’s new guidance to consider record strength, there is an assumption that really bad losses are weighted heavily, but that certainly hasn’t been the case this time around.
The latter half of the committee’s top 25 is usually the equivalent of the phone lines for a Finebaum episode — just a place where a lot of mediocre SEC folks hang out, patiently waiting for their turn. But this time, the committee has stuffed the bottom of the rankings with Big Ten teams — No. 19 USC, No. 20 Iowa, No. 21 Michigan and No. 23 Washington — and that might actually matter in the long run.
Also angry: Virginia Cavaliers (8-1, No. 14, behind four two-loss teams), USF Bulls (6-2, unranked), Arizona State Sun Devils (6-3, unranked), Cincinnati Bearcats (7-2, unranked), Brian Kelly (just angry for other reasons).
And yet, putting Miami at No. 18 — eight full spots behind another two-loss team the Canes beat head-to-head — can only be explained by the vibes. Notre Dame’s season is rolling right along now. Miami has hit some stumbling blocks. Never mind the Canes are two late Carson Beck interceptions away from still being undefeated. Never mind that Miami has four wins vs. FPI top-35 teams, twice as many as any other two-loss team except Oklahoma. Never mind that Miami has that head-to-head against the No. 10 team in the committee’s rankings or that it walloped a Florida team that took No. 5 Georgia to the wire and actually beat No. 11 Texas. Never mind that Miami beat a then-ranked USF by 37.
But the SEC — that’s where the real depth is. Nearly half the SEC’s conference games this season have been one-possession affairs. Mississippi State, a team that had gone nearly two years without an SEC win, already knocked off last year’s Big 12 champ. LSU, a team that fired its coach, has a win over last year’s ACC champ. Florida beat Texas. Putting a bunch of undeserving teams at the bottom of the rankings only serves to prop up the résumés of teams such as Oregon, which hasn’t beaten anyone of consequence. And frankly, the committee is supposed to do that for the SEC, not the Big Ten.
Ohio State takes No. 1 spot in 1st CFP rankings reveal (4:22)Check out who has landed where in the first College Football Playoff rankings of the year. (4:22)
CloseCollege football reporter.Joined ESPN in 2012.Graduate of the University of Delaware.Follow on X
Still, a few schools have a pretty good case for outrage already.
Team A: No. 3 strength of record, No. 33 strength of schedule, 4-0 vs. SP+ top-40 opponents, best win vs. No. 11 in the committee’s poll.
Team B: No. 4 strength of record, No. 45 strength of schedule, 3-0 vs. SP+ top-40 opponents, best win vs. No. 13 in the committee’s poll.
Sure, Team A has a slight edge, but the résumés look pretty similar.
Let’s take another look at some blind résumés, shall we?
Team A: No. 10 strength of record, No. 58 strength of schedule, one win vs. SP+ top 40, best win vs. committee’s No. 13 team, lone loss vs. an unranked team.
So, surely the Group of 5 should be pretty upset, right?
James Madison has one loss to SP+ No. 16 (and the No. 15 team in the committee’s rankings).
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the Tigers weren’t punished at all for a terrible loss.
Check out who has landed where in the first College Football Playoff rankings of the year. (4:22)