College Football Playoff Releases First Top 25 Rankings

By Kevin Kelley -

The College Football Playoff Selection Committee released their first set of Top 25 rankings tonight and the Mississippi State Bulldogs are number one.

Mississippi State is followed by Florida State, Auburn, and Ole Miss. Just outside the top four are Oregon (5th), Alabama (6th), and TCU (7th).

College Football Playoff Rankings (Oct. 28)

1. Mississippi State
2. Florida State
3. Auburn
4. Ole Miss
5. Oregon
6. Alabama
7. TCU
8. Michigan State
9. Kansas State
10. Notre Dame
11. Georgia
12. Arizona
13. Baylor
14. Arizona State
15. Nebraska
16. Ohio State
17. Utah
18. Oklahoma
19. LSU
20. West Virginia
21. Clemson
22. UCLA
23. East Carolina
24. Duke
25. Louisville

The College Football Playoff Selection Committee will release their Top 25 rankings each week on Tuesday through Dec. 2.

On Sunday, Dec. 7, the College Football Playoff Selection Committee will announce the Playoff Semifinal pairings and semifinal bowl assignments at 12:45pm ET on ESPN.

At 2:45pm ET on Dec. 7, the committee will announce the Cotton, Fiesta and Peach Bowl pairings, as well as the final top 25 rankings. They will also announce the pairing for the Orange Bowl.

CFP Rankings Release Schedule

  • Oct. 28 – 7:30pm ET, ESPN (First set of rankings released)
  • Nov. 4 – 7:30pm ET, ESPN
  • Nov. 11 – 7:30pm ET, ESPN
  • Nov. 18 – 7pm ET, ESPN2
  • Nov. 25 – 7pm ET, ESPN
  • Dec. 2 – 7pm ET, ESPN
  • Dec. 7 – 12:45pm ET on ESPN (Selection Sunday and Playoff Semifinal teams announced)

Comments (24)

Helps when your 2 losses are to th #1 and #3 team anbd youve beaten the #4 team. lol
Bama game next weekend will be BIG. Love the SEC and Big 12.

I will say I am pulling for ECU. I think they have a solid offense, hope their defense can hold up. I am a Clemson fan and don’t think they can beat us with Deshaun at qb. But definitely think they would be a great match up for teams like UCLA, Ohio St, Michigan St, Arizona, and Kansas St. Hope they get a quality opponent in a bowl because they are deserving.

Can’t wait to see how this pans out! As long as my Noles stay in the top 4 I’m happy but can’t afford any losses even if we win the ACC, especially since the PAC12, BIGXII, and the B1G are at our heels.

Clemson fan here. I still don’t know how FSU lost its #1 ranking. Don’t know how that happened. Guess the committee is listening to and watching a little too much ESPN. They most definitely deserve to be ranked #1. Especially after the ND win. I think or at least hope ND has been recognized for as good as they played. I think most underestimated how good they actually are. I also think that the preseason rankings really hurt the ACC this year as far as strength of schedule is concerned. I would take Louisville any day of the week over teams like UCLA, Ohio St and Oklahoma. I would love to see them play ASU or Arizona as well. I think people are overlooking the overall level of defense that the ACC has been playing at this year. As you can visibly see in games like BC and USC, Virginia vs UCLA. Definitely think teams like Louisville, Duke and possibly Georgia Tech should have been ranked higher prior to this weeks rankings. Glad the committee recognized Louisville but still think they are better and more deserving of a higher ranking than Oklahoma and UCLA. So no one says I said it after the fact. Watch and see what the ACC’s bowl record will be. As good as any other conference. And bet we play more SEC teams for the bowls than any other conference as well.

How much losses teams have seam to matter quite a lot with 2 loss teams being below most of the 1 loss teams. Also Mississippi being above Oregon does not bode well for the idea of tough OOC schedules mattering.

The committee would have came out with a much different poll is they did not have the other polls to guide them. And that is the inherent problem, as the committee gravitates to the norm, rather than independently and objectively rank the programs. Get rid of those pre-season polls and rank the teams no sooner than after five games have been played. But the media would never do that.

And where does the money go that Amway pays to ‘sponsor’ the coaches poll? Does all the money go to USA Today or are the coaches paid to vote? The poll is a joke as the coaches don’t do the actual voting, and their designated assistants don;t watch most of the games. The media is culpable in that scam of a poll by widely reporting the results.

Dude I totally agree. I was, to say the least, pretty disappointed in what I saw from the rankings. I know it’s early so we’ll see how things change. I think they definitely were influenced by the other polls. I think that FSU should be #1, especially after the ND win. But you are right about wanting to “gravitate to the norm” nicely said. I have been thinking about it quite a bit lately. These peoples names are known by the public and will be influenced by it regardless. Whether negatively or positively. As unhappy as some people were with the BCS they had been perfecting it year after year and had seemed to have been very accurate. At least from my personal opinion. Being a Clemson fan who hasn’t been in the top 10 prior to the bowl selection. I believe my opinion is close to not being bias.
I definitely think they need to keep altering and perfecting this system, as they will. But I do think that the preseason polls directly influence the entire season. And it isn’t fair. This is something we can sharpen and perfect but can’t with preseason rankings. Teams ranked higher at beginning of season have so much less catching up to do as opposed to being ranked higher at beginning of season. Look at Duke for example. I know they haven’t beaten anyone great but have just entered the top 25 with a 6-1 record. Record isn’t any different from ASU, OSU, Arizona. Who have those four teams beaten? Only teams ranked higher due to preseason rankings. ACC gets no respect due to prior seasons and is affected during the current season. A joke. We will represent this bowl season. Teams other than UCLA and USC will find out how good some defenses are in the ACC.

So how might the playoff committee vote at the end of the season if:

* FSU wins out and wins ACC champ (over Duke)
* Alabama wins out and wins SEC champ (over Georgia)
* Oregon wins out and wins P12 champ (over Arizona)
* TCU wins out
* Mich St wins out and wins B1G champ (over Wisconsin)
* ND wins out
* Missi loses to Auburn & Missi St
* Baylor wins out (& is B12 champ via tiebreaker)
* Georgia wins out and loses SEC champ (to Alabama)
* Arizona wins out & loses P12 champ (to Oregon)
* Missi St loses to Alabama and Missi
* Auburn loses to Georgia and Alabama
* Clemson wins out
* ECU wins out (& is AAC champ)

With the above results possible playoff committee vote:

1. Fla St / 2. Ala / 3. Ore / 4. TCU / 5. Mich St /
6. ND / 7. Missi / 8. Baylor / 9. Georgia / 10. Arizona
11. Miss St / 12. Auburn / 13. Clemson / 14. ECU

#1 FSU #2 Bama #3 TCU #4 Oregon

the rest won’t matter but I could agree with the remainder of your rankings

Maybe top 12 of worst teams. They really hurt the ACC this year. Except they did beat OSU. Don’t know how Ohio st is ranked so high after beating no one and loosing to a bad team. They better hope they don’t win out because they will get killed by whoever they play. A one loss Ohio st team would get beat by four loss SEC team. Sure hope the voters think that a loss to a bad team far outweighs beating someone ranked high.

If The Ohio State beats Michigan St, that may end the BIG run at the playoffs, Michigan St is very solid this year, they seem to start out slow but finish every game strong. I can see Nebraska & Wisconsin losing another game as well.

If they do beat Michigan St all it will show is that the Big 10 is worst than we expected and would make the Oregon loss look not so good. I definitely think Michigan St is over ranked and would get absolutely crushed if they played anyone in the top 10. Still not a believer in the Ducks. Still think they will loose again. They have a lot more to show me before they get my vote in the playoff. Defense has to play better and the line isn’t great and hasn’t faced a top notch defense as they would be forced to face.

It will be funny on how many times this ranking will change over the next 5-7 weeks. You have 3 SEC teams from the west in the top 5, that will not last. If TCU loses another game, not sure if a BIG12 team will even get in, We know an American conference will not get in, FSU is the only hope for the ACC (as of right now) PAC12 has Oregon but they seem to lose close to the end of the season & they still have Oregon St (never an easy game). ND controls their own destiny but if they lose one more game they may not make it in.