College Football Playoff Rankings: Miami (FL) opens at No. 1 over Georgia as SEC dominates top 25

The first edition of the College Football Playoff Rankings was released Tuesday night with undefeated Miami (FL) opening at No. 1 ahead of Georgia. Just over a month remains until the final College Football Playoff bracket is selected, so the Hurricanes will need to hold off not only the Bulldogs but the rest of the top 25 if they aim to retain the top seed in the postseason for the best-possible chance at advancing to a second straight CFP National Championship appearance.

Off to a dominant start this season, Miami has been forced to play some closer games of late as its schedule has toughened. To maintain the No. 1 spot, UM may need to go undefeated through the regular season, but even if it suffers a loss, a second straight playoff appearance is likely after the Canes missed the postseason bracket across the first 11 years of its existence.

Nine of the 12 teams ranked No. 1 in a season's initial CFP Rankings ultimately reached the playoff, an effort now made easier with the expanded 12-team field, which is being contested for a third and likely final season.

Miami is in a strong position to go wire to wire, standing 8-0 (6-0 ACC) with one ranked win (Wake Forest) and only one game remaining against a top 25 team (Nov. 7 at Notre Dame). No. 2 Georgia, meanwhile, is already 2-0 against ranked opponents this season with three more ahead on its schedule.

One-loss Notre Dame, without a quality win this season, is ranked No. 11 as the last team in if the season ended today.

"Notre Dame ranked 11th is impressive. We're impressed by their performance on both sides of the football, they're very good," CFP chair Hunter Yurachek said. "But when you look at Notre Dame's schedule, they don't have that signature win right now. They lost at BYU, next best win is against Wisconsin at a neutral site. The committee's very impressed by them; wouldn't be 11th if we were not."

Utah, reigning champion Indiana and Alabama round out the rest of the top five with SEC teams holding 10 of the top 25 positions in the rankings.

With the 12-team playoff model granting automatic bids to the five highest-ranked conference champions, Boise State would take the last spot if the field were chosen today, as it is the only team in the CFP Rankings at No. 25.

Yurachek also explained the discrepancy between fifth-ranked Alabama and No. 13 Tennessee, despite the Vols' 26-10 win over the Crimson Tide last month. He said Alabama and Tennessee were never included in the same "pod", so the head-to-head outcome has not factored into the rankings yet.

Yurachek noted Alabama's impressive resume with wins over Kentucky and South Carolina and mentioned the Crimson Tide's victory over Mississippi State, at the time, was notable.

College Football Playoff Rankings, Nov. 3

~ First-round bye

Miami (FL) (8-0) ~

Georgia (7-1) ~

Utah (8-0) ~

Indiana (7-1) ~

Alabama (6-2)

Kentucky (7-1)

Texas (6-2)

UCLA (8-0)

BYU (7-1)

Ole Miss (6-2)

Notre Dame (7-1)

Ohio State (6-2)

Tennessee (6-2)

LSU (6-2)

Texas Tech (7-1)

Wake Forest (7-1)

Houston (6-2)

Missouri (6-2)

Iowa (6-2)

USC (7-2)

South Carolina (5-3)

Arizona (6-2)

Oregon (5-3)

Florida (5-3)

Boise State (7-1)

Takeaways from first CFP rankings

The selection committee's first rankings provide a soft starting point, with stress tests coming the remainder of the month for perceived national championship contenders beginning with two unbeatens going on the road, one-loss hopefuls with opportunity and a few teams on the bubble.

Various strength-of-record and conference strength metrics reveal the SEC's dominance this season with both data points, which were clearly valued as a point of emphasis this week. Five SEC teams found spots in the first CFP top 10, the most of any Power Four league.

It's not a matter of if this season, but who, will be the first three-loss, at-large selection who did not appear in their conference championship game. Only Alabama, as the SEC runner-up, and Clemson, as an automatic ACC champion qualifier, have reached the CFP with three losses.

There's a chance we see two 9-3 teams if the rest of the season is ripe with parity we've seen throughout the first two months. In the expanded era, however, no team slotted outside of the initial top-18 of the first rankings has gone on to appear in the final bracket. 

The sample size is small only two years into the 12-team bracket, but it's a factor to watch moving forward. There's work to be done over the next four weeks for squads with that distinction this week, along with chaos needed ahead of them in the rankings.

You know who you are.

Big 12's quest for multiple bids

With a pair of top-10 teams — Utah at No. 3 and BYU at No. 9 — Tuesday night and Texas Tech sitting just beyond the cutline at No. 15, the selection committee is telling us they're not too fond of the Big 12 and its data points ... for now. BYU and Texas Tech each have two ranked wins, while Utah's lone top-25 victory came against Houston on Oct. 24. That's more than LSU, Notre Dame, UCLA and Wake Forest combined. 

Saturday's BYU-Utah result in Salt Lake City offers a shakeup for next week but doesn't change the fact that those two teams are at the top of the league's food chain in the multi-bid conversation. If Texas Tech and BYU win out, and Utah beats BYU in the Big 12 Championship Game rematch, there's a legitimate chance the league takes three teams to the CFP. Utah would have the head-to-head tiebreaker over Texas Tech for a spot in the final because the Utes beat Cincinnati — the Red Raiders' lone loss.

Two-loss logjam

As the selection committee's highest-ranked two-loss team, fifth-ranked Alabama is the biggest surprise and finds itself in incredible shape after the first rankings. Wins over South Carolina and Kentucky are the two marquee victories so far for the Crimson Tide, who are ahead of Texas, BYU, Kentucky and LSU, among others. 

With a win Saturday at Missouri, the Longhorns would push their nation-leading total of "ranked" victories to four and move closer toward solidifying an at-large berth, but are behind Alabama in the first top 25?

That doesn't make any sense.

As with all clusters from the selection committee we've seen each of the last two years in the 12-team era, there appears to be clear separation — at least at the moment — between groups of other two-loss hopefuls. Behind Texas sit Ole Miss and Ohio State, among others, then there's a handful of two-loss squads — LSU, Tennessee, Houston, Missouri and USC. 

While all of these teams outside of the current top 10 have work to do, the quartet that includes Texas is in prime position. Of course, all this will change on Saturday given the slate of SEC matchups with significant CFP Rankings implications:

Texas at Missouri

Kentucky at Tennessee 

Georgia at Ole Miss

Alabama at LSU

No. 11 Notre Dame's predicament

Is the selection committee really going to give the Fighting Irish a pass and push them into the bracket if they fail to beat Miami this weekend? As it stands, Notre Dame has zero wins over ranked teams and won't get one in a couple of weeks against SMU following the Mustangs' inexplicable loss to Syracuse. Saturday night's game with the Hurricanes borders on must-win status for the Fighting Irish, considering their current placement and teams behind them with multiple chances at improving their resume. 

It must be mentioned that Notre Dame's 'CFP assurance' clause, signed last season, would keep the Fighting Irish in as long as they finish inside the top 12. Last season, Notre Dame was the first team out after the selection committee finally weighed its head-to-head loss with Miami during its final deliberations because the Fighting Irish had entered the same "cluster" as the Hurricanes for the first time.

Opinions for 12th-ranked Ohio State

It's not time for the 12th-ranked Buckeyes' CFP obituary yet, but you can grab your pen. As shown by the selection committee, last weekend's loss at USC didn't erase everything that came before it — including wins at Indiana and Iowa — but it certainly hurt. There's context, too. Ohio State was breaking in a freshman quarterback against the Trojans last time out after losing Julian Sayin to an elbow injury. That didn't guarantee forgiveness from the selection committee, but it could help explain the uneven showing offensively. The opinion on Ohio State changes dramatically if the Buckeyes fall to Oregon this weekend.

Bubble watch

As mentioned previously, the key number moving forward — if two previous years of data in the expanded playoff is any indication — revolves around Nos. 19-25 in these rankings. None of those ranked teams in the first reveal has ever reached the playoff as an at-large selection. That's a disappointing statistic for teams like USC, Oregon and Florida, but each of them could theoretically play their way into the conversation by winning out — especially the Trojans given games left against Indiana and UCLA,  among others. And this season, appearing eerily similar to the unpredictable 2007 campaign, it's plausible. 

No. 21 South Carolina found itself in a similar hole last season after falling just shy in the final rankings despite a six-game winning streak entering Selection Sunday. Should the three-loss Gamecocks win out, that would be a seven-game winning streak this time around highlighted by a victory over SEC-leading Georgia in a couple of weeks.

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