On Tuesday Night, the College Football Playoff committee unveiled its Top 25 rankings, giving us the first look at the race for the Playoff. The rankings reveal gave us some surprises as well as a ton of rankings that we expected, setting up for an exciting final stretch of the College Football season.
Honestly, it was a little disappointing that the top four teams were chalk and left us with no real drama or debate. I was hoping the committee was going to make it spicy and possibly put Texas A&M over Indiana or even Indiana over Ohio State. There are definitely arguments for all three in the top three being ranked above the other two.
It was very interesting that the Group of Five qualifier in Memphis was not even ranked in the Top 25 and that there are currently five ACC teams in the ranking. I will say, though where they have the highest-ranked ACC team that there is little to no chance that two teams get in this year after the chaos of the weekend.
Obviously, a lot will change between now and the end of November, but for neither Texas or Oklahoma to be in the playoff based on this first ranking wasn't on anybody's bingo card with the expectations they had coming into the season.
For Notre Dame to already be a playoff team with two losses shows the bias that always surrounds this team. The loss to Texas A&M still looks good as of now, and it will be interesting to see if another Miami loss would negatively hurt their chances if they run the table and end the season at 10-2. On paper, that looks likely to happen, but that game at Pitt next weekend is looking more and more interesting with how the Panthers have played since the quarterback change.
It seems the Big 12 is going to face the same fate as the ACC with getting only one team gets in unless BYU runs the table in the regular season but loses in the conference championship game, and then there is a good chance we see two teams get in. Though, it is unlikely to happen I know the conference has to secretly hope that the Cougars pull off the upset over Texas Tech in Lubbock this weekend to keep the hope of two teams alive. It is going to be one of the most interesting Novembers of recent memory and if things go a certain way the committee will have a very tough job in the second year of the 12-team field.