Three Things to Pay Attention to When the College Football Playoff Rankings Are Released

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — On Tuesday, a decision that will impact the future of Hoosiers around the world will finally be revealed to a waiting world.

No, not the election day results. We’re talking about the first College Football Playoff rankings. The rankings will be announced at 7:00 pm ET and will be broadcast on ESPN.

For the first time, it will be a must-see spectacle for Indiana football fans. Indiana’s unprecedented 9-0 start and expansion of the field to 12 teams put the Hoosiers at the center of the playoff conversation.

Indiana is ranked No. 8 in the Associated Press poll released Sunday, but that ranking has no bearing on the CFP rankings. The CFP rankings are determined by a committee similar to the NCAA tournament selection committee for basketball.

Here are some basic rules to know regarding field compilation:

– The five highest-ranked conference champions take the field. Four of them will qualify for the quarterfinals. It’s almost certain that the Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12 champions will get those four byes.

– The remaining seven teams are selected from the entire FBS, and there is no limit to the number of teams that can be selected per conference. Since the fifth conference champion will likely be ranked below No. 11, the top 11 in the rankings are essentially entering the field.

– The eight teams that did not receive a bye play the first round on campus. These games will be played with seeds 5-8.

This is how the field is filled in. Here are the principles the CFP selection committee uses to select and field large teams:

“The committee will select teams using a process that differentiates otherwise comparable teams, taking into account:

– Strength of schedule

– Personal competition.

– Comparative results of common opponents (without increasing the margin of victory)

– Other important factors, such as the absence of key players and coaches, that could affect the team’s performance during the season or are likely to affect its performance after the season.

The committee consists of 13 coaches, student-athletes, college officials and journalists.

Here’s how the voting process works, according to the CFP Selection Committee’s voting process:

– Each committee member independently selects the 30 best teams in the country. Teams entered by three or more participants remain under consideration. At the end of any round of voting, teams can be added if three or more committee members want to be added.

– Each participant lists the top six teams. The six teams with the most votes make up the pool for the first stage of the rankings, known as the “listing stage”.

– In the first stage of the ranking, each participant ranks these six teams, with one point awarded to the first place vote and so on. The ratings of the participants will be added up, and the three teams with the fewest points will be included in the top three teams. This process is repeated until 25 teams have been evaluated.

The expected conference champions for the top four seeds will then be determined.

The CFP quarterfinals will take place at the Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Peach Bowl. Whenever possible, teams are assigned to play quarterfinal playoff games at the traditional sites most affiliated with the conferences in which they play. Thus, if Oregon were a No. 1 seed, it would be assigned to the Rose Bowl.

After this, teams 5–12 are distributed in order. There are no provisions to prevent inter-conference meetings in the first round. So, in theory, Indiana could play Penn State in a first-round matchup.

There is no single criterion that the committee uses for selection. There is a wide variety of data available, but this is a subjective decision for each committee member.

Do you have it all? This is a subjective process, as are all committee processes. Here’s what to look for when the rankings are released:

1. How valuable is it to be invincible?

This may seem like a stupid question. Why wouldn’t it make sense to be undefeated?

Indiana is one of four Power Four conference teams with an undefeated record. One of them, Oregon, is in the Big Ten, and the Hoosiers and Ducks won’t face each other unless they play in the Big Ten championship game. The other two undefeated are Miami of the ACC and BYU of the Big 12.

Although Oregon is ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press poll, one-loss teams receive more attention than other undefeated teams in AP and coaches polls. No. 2 Georgia and No. 3 Ohio State lead Miami, BYU and Indiana with one loss.

It will be interesting to see how the College Football Playoff committee breaks down the resumes of undefeated teams. Anyone can choose their own criteria, but what will matter most to the committee?

Will it be overall statistical superiority? Will this be the margin of victory? Would it matter what teams you played for? With large conferences, the need to analyze both in- and out-of-conference scheduling becomes more important than ever.

No one should assume that an undefeated record automatically guarantees a spot in the playoffs. If you have any doubts, go to Tallahassee and ask a Florida State fan about how the committee feels about undefeated teams that the committee considers flawed.

2. How is the selection committee going to evaluate the reliability of the schedule?

The strength of the schedule mentioned above deserves special attention given that Indiana is very vulnerable in this regard.

Indiana’s current schedule ranks 103rd out of 134 FBS schools, which is still the worst of any Power Four conference school, according to ESPN. Indiana’s closest CFP contender in the schedule strength rankings is Iowa State, ranked 83rd. After that, Notre Dame is next at 75th.

If a strict schedule is the number one protocol the committee members care about, as ordered, Indiana’s weak SOS number will put the Hoosiers underwater, but to what extent?

What will be interesting is how the committee considers controllable factors versus uncontrollable factors.

For example, Indiana has no control over its Big Ten. Nebraska and Washington are the only winning Big Ten teams the Hoosiers have faced thus far, but it’s not Indiana’s fault that it got the benefit of having favorable Big Ten opponents on its schedule. Does the commission take this into account?

Power Four schools, on the other hand, have complete control over their non-conference slates. Indiana’s trio of Florida International, Western Illinois and Charlotte pales in comparison to nearly all of Indiana’s competitors in the playoff qualifying race.

Things are worse in Indiana, considering Indiana abandoned Louisville, now a top 25 team, to play Western Illinois. This decision was made in 2023, but it could have big consequences in 2024. The Committee will be cognizant of the fact that Indiana has deliberately relaxed its schedule. Leaving Curt Cignetti out (he was not involved in this decision) is not the outcome that should be intended.

3. How does the committee feel about the Big Ten as a whole?

In response to claims of a weak schedule, some Indiana fans countered that a team like Penn State wouldn’t beat a team currently ranked, so why should the Hoosiers be treated worse than the Nittany Lions?

This is not the flexibility that people might imagine.

On the surface, the Big Ten appears to be in great shape to field as many as four teams out of a 12-team field. Oregon, Ohio State, Penn State and Indiana are in the top 10 in the polls.

However, the committee will not look at it that way. Of these four teams, Ohio State will be the only one guaranteed to play all three others by the end of the season. The strength of the Buckeyes’ schedule will be impeccable, but what about the rest? How is the Big Ten strengthening teams or holding them back?

There are ten teams in the Big Ten that are .500 or better. Oregon will play or play five of them, with the signature win being a big win over Ohio State.

Penn State played or will play five games, although Penn State lost its signature game to Ohio State. Indiana has or will play four of those schools. The Hoosiers’ fate will likely depend on the outcome of the Ohio State game on Nov. 23.

The committee may predict what it thinks will happen, or it may assign a rating to what has happened. Considering this is just the first ranking of the season, how the committee views these lower-tier Big Ten wins compared to similar wins in other conferences will be interesting.

Good news for Indiana and Big Ten contenders? None of the other conferences were able to demonstrate their superiority either. The larger conferences have created quite a bit of trash in the middle of each league. How does the committee figure all this out?

The SEC’s best non-conference win was Texas’ win at Michigan, but it was negated by the Wolverines’ fall from grace. Georgia also beat Clemson, but the Tigers lost at home to Louisville on Saturday.

In fact, the SEC could take a hit from one of its rivals, LSU, losing at a neutral site to Southern California, which is currently 2-5 in the Big Ten.

The ACC has Miami and possibly SMU, but two of the possible teams – Clemson and Pittsburgh – both suffered blowout losses on Saturday. The Big 12 has BYU, which easily beat both SMU and Kansas State, but not much else. Iowa and Kansas suffered huge losses over the weekend.

Notre Dame, an independent project, is also difficult to analyze. The road win over Texas A&M is impressive, but the home loss to Northern Illinois (currently 1-3 in the Mid-American Conference) is hard to explain.