On Tuesday Night, the College Football Playoff committee unveiled their first Top 25 rankings of the season as the race for the College Football Playoff is in full effect. This first set of rankings does give us a foundation to build off of for the rest of the season, but every week moving forward we're going to see teams rise, fall, and completely fall out of the race.
The Playoff committee just told everyone the games don't matter
When the rankings were revealed, one thing stood out more than anything else, which is the fact that the Notre Dame Fighting Irish came in at 10th while the Miami Hurricanes were ranked 18th. On the surface, most won't bat an eye as the Hurricanes and Notre Dame both share identical 6-2 records.
The issue is that we've already seen these two teams play which should've played into how these teams were ranked. Miami won the game 27-24 to start the season holding off a fierce 4th quarter comeback by Notre Dame.
Since their matchup, we've seen Notre Dame go on a 6 game winning streak after losing to Texas A&M in Week 2 while Miami has lost 2 of their last 3 games. Even with how things have gone recently, ranking Notre Dame ahead of Miami is insane.
If Notre Dame is going to be ranked ahead of Miami despite the results on the field, what is the incentive for teams to play big games? We're being told by the rankings that Notre Dame is better than Miami when we have perfect proof with the game they played to start the season.
At the end of the season, this should all play itself out especially if either team loses another game down the stretch. Even while the 12 best teams may get in the Playoff, if we get to Selection Sunday and Notre Dame edges out Miami for a Playoff spot, it'll send a statement to the rest of the Country.