Ohio State is the No. 1 team in the first rankings released Tuesday by the College Football Playoff selection committee, topping fellow unbeatens Indiana at No. 2 and Texas A&M at No. 3.
Three SEC teams followed the Aggies, with Alabama at No. 4, Georgia at No. 5 and Ole Miss at No. 6.
BYU, Texas Tech, Oregon and Notre Dame round out the top 10. The top ACC team is Virginia at No. 14. Every team in the top 25 came from a Power 4 conference, so the committee designated Memphis as the top team from the Group of 5.
The five highest-ranked conference champions will make the 12-team field, but there is a tweak to the format this year as the committee is using a straight seeding model. The top four teams in the final ranking, regardless of conference championship, will receive a first-round bye.
If the playoff were today, the first-round games would be: Memphis at Georgia; Virginia at Ole Miss; Notre Dame at BYU; and Oregon at Texas Tech.
“We had robust discussion about the three of them,” CFP committee chair Mack Rhoades, the athletic director at Baylor, said on ESPN’s rankings release show Tuesday night regarding the Buckeyes, Hoosiers and Aggies at the top of the board. “Obviously, all three are undefeated. … We really felt like that Ohio State and Indiana were close. When you look at the statistical data, both offensively and defensively, these are two teams that are both in the top five offensively and in the top five defensively, both with really good wins.
“But again, when we looked at tape, and we looked at metrics, we felt that Ohio State was a little bit better up front, on the offensive line. And we thought they were better defensively.”
The SEC led the way with nine teams ranked in the top 25, while the Big Ten had seven, including the Ducks, who elicited discussion about their top-10 ranking. The ACC had five on the list, and the Big 12 had three.
“It came up when we talked about Oregon,” Rhoades said in reference to the new straight-seeding model. “When you look at them in the top 10, our lowest ranked in terms of record strength. And so the committee had a lot of conversations — rigorous debate and conversations — about Oregon as a team.
“We’re blessed to have three coaches in the room and looking at the tape. And when you looked at Oregon, they have great players at the skill positions. We felt that they were really good up front, both sides of the ball. Their one loss is to our No. 2-ranked team, in Indiana, and so, again, when we looked and evaluated Oregon, we really looked in terms of quality of team and how they looked on film.”
Despite having two losses, Notre Dame finds itself in position to make the CFP as an at-large team for the second straight season. Though the only notable win the Irish have is over No. 19 USC, both of their losses came in the closing minute to No. 3 Texas A&M and No. 18 Miami in the first two weeks of the season.
Despite having the same number of losses and the head-to-head win over the Irish, Miami is ranked No. 18 — eight spots lower than Notre Dame after losing 26-20 in overtime to SMU this past weekend. Though the Hurricanes have more notable victories, their losses have put them on the outside of the 12-team field, in what could be a repeat of last year.
“We’re sitting here looking at head to head, we’re looking at common opponents, we’re looking at schedule strength, we’re looking at record strength, we’re looking at all of the analytics,” Rhoades said of the evaluation process. “So, we truly try to look at each team on its own, and its body of work.”
Though Texas and quarterback Arch Manning have looked shaky at times over the course of the season, the Longhorns are ranked No. 11 after a big win over No. 16 Vanderbilt. They also beat Oklahoma 23-6 last month. Unlike Miami and Notre Dame, that head-to-head win is what is separating Texas and the No. 12 Sooners, both with the same 7-2 record.
Utah is ranked No. 13, with Virginia at No. 14 and Louisville at No. 15. The Cardinals have a win over Miami but lost to Virginia earlier this season.
Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech, Miami, USC, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Washington, Pittsburgh and Tennessee round out the top 25. The Volunteers are the only three-loss team in the rankings.
The final CFP rankings will be announced Dec. 7, the day after conference championship games are played.
The four first-round games will be played at the home campus of the higher-seeded teams on Dec. 19 and 20. The four quarterfinal games will be played at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl (Dec. 31), Capital One Orange Bowl (Jan. 1), Rose Bowl Game Presented by Prudential (Jan. 1) and Allstate Sugar Bowl (Jan. 1).
The two semifinal games will take place at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl and Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl on Jan. 8 and 9, respectively.
The CFP National Championship is scheduled for Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.