CFP rankings winners and losers for Week 10: 'SEC bias' is back; Notre Dame, Ohio State better not lose

CFP rankings winners and losers for Week 10: ‘SEC bias’ is back; Notre Dame, Ohio State better not lose originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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The first set of College Football Playoff rankings were unveiled on “College Football Top 25” on Tuesday – and a Generation Z catch-phrase applies. 

Rage bait. That’s exactly what came from a first set of rankings that are nowhere close to the AP Top 25, which was released Sunday. No. 11 Notre Dame is seven spots higher in the AP Top 25. No. 5 Alabama is four spots higher than their AP Top 25 ranking, and head-to-head result No. 4 Indiana and No. 12 Ohio State was huge.

CFP Top 25 teams by conference             

CONF.TEAMSSEC10Big Ten6Big 125ACC2Ind1Mountain West1

“This has been such a crazy football season filled with unbelievable parity through the first eight weeks,” CFP committee chairman Hunter Yurachek said on the ESPN telecast. “There are a number of football games to be played. Just look at the matchups coming this weekend. … We’re looking forward to the task at hand, and it will be a difficult task each week.” 

Yes, there promises to be massive changes after Week 10 – which features seven matchups between teams ranked in the CFP Top 25. That was made possible with No. 23 Oregon, which is not ranked in the AP Top 25. But this set had a lot of rage bait. 

Who were the winners and losers in the first set of rankings? A closer look.

MORE: Here’s what a 24-team field would look like with these rankings

CFP Rankings winners & losers 

Winners 

SEC

The SEC had 10 teams in the rankings, including five teams in the top 10, which would be inside the 12-team field. 

It’s more than that, however. Georgia had the same spot in the AP Top 25. Every other SEC team is ranked higher in the CFP rankings than the AP Top 25. A closer look at the differences:                                      

SCHOOLCFPAPDIFGeorgia22-Alabama59+4Kentucky68+2Texas710+3Ole Miss1012+2Tennessee1316+3LSU1415+1Missouri1819+1South Carolina2123+2Florida2425+1

This does nothing to shed the narrative of “SEC bias” from the CFP committee. How fair is it? The SEC has been subjectively the best conference in the FBS to this point, and per usual they have the highest one-loss team (Georgia), highest two-loss team (Alabama) and highest three-loss team (South Carolina) in the rankings. That bodes well for SEC teams trying to take the last few at-large spots as November progresses. 

Indiana 

No. 4 Indiana is the highest-ranked Big Ten team, which was a surprise considering the Hoosiers have a head-to-head loss to Ohio State and No. 8 UCLA is the only unbeaten team left in the Big Ten. 

Why is this a surprise? Indiana has four one-score victories in Big Ten play, including a 23-16 overtime escape against Minnesota in Week 9, and no wins against this current Top 25. Should the Hoosiers be a top-five team right now? No, but Indiana coach Curt Cignetti has Indiana in position to make a third straight College Football Playoff appearance with a 10-win season — one that could be solidified with a victory against No. 20 USC on Nov. 14. 

BCS, four-team and 24-team enthusiasts

Yeah, everybody but 12-team College Football Playoff backers are going to be crowing after the wild discrepancies between the rankings and the AP Top 25. 

A four-team playoff would be simplified to the four Power 4 conference champions at this point. The old Bowl Championship Series would have No. 1 Miami – the 11th different school to hold the top spot in the CFP rankings since its inception in 2014 – and No. 2 Georgia. Proponents of the 24-team playoff would point to taking the guesswork out of the rankings and acknowledge that all of these teams would get in the playoff anyway.

Losers  

Notre Dame 

Talk about disparity. The Irish are seven spots lower than their spot in the AP Top 25. Yurachek addressed that ranking on the ESPN telecast.

“They are a very good football team, but when you look at Notre Dame’s schedule and the wins that they have vs. the teams that are ahead of them, they don’t have that signature win right now,” Yurachek said.

Notre Dame plays Miami on Saturday in the best matchup between those two teams since “Catholics vs. Convicts” in 1988. While that should be seen as a top-five matchup – which it is in the AP Top 25 – the committee is pigeon-holing the Irish into a must-win situation. If the Irish lose this game, then they might not be able to push back into the top 12 of the rankings, which would guarantee the team a spot in the College Football Playoff. 

Our take? This ranking is absurd. Notre Dame has won seven games by an average of 31.4 points per game, and the 28-24 loss to No. 9 BYU was on the last play of the game. And, by the way, they are a 5.5-point favorite against the Hurricanes this weekend. 

Ohio State

The Buckeyes cannot afford to lose again. Ohio State is currently the first team out when it comes to the 12-team bracket, and Yurachek addressed the 30-18 loss to USC in Week 8. Is this a ding because freshman quarterback Luke Fahey replaced injured starter Julian Sayin? 

“I don’t want the burden all on the freshman quarterback,” Yurachek said. “Their offense played fairly well. They were held to four field goals through three-and-a-half quarters, but their defense gave up some really big, explosive plays.” 

Oregon is the last ranked team on Ohio State’s schedule, and the good news is the Buckeyes likely would land in the Big Ten championship game with four November victories. The bad news? The committee is clearly saying a three-loss Buckeyes’ team would be left out of the field.

MORE: Ohio State presents committee with QB challenge

Group of 6 

This is not a new development. No. 25 Boise State is the lone Group of 6 team in the top 25 rankings, and New Mexico was left off the list. The committee is clearly treating the Group of 6 as a courtesy, and the rumblings about why the No. 25 team would get in with an automatic berth ahead of an at-large team from a Power 4 conference looking to squeeze in the field will continue. 

This will not be a year when multiple Group of 6 teams get in the playoff, like last year when Tulane and James Madison lost their first-round games by an average of 24 points. 

CFP Top 25 Rankings 

A look at the CFP rankings heading into Week 10: 

RANKSCHOOL1Miami (8-0)2Georgia (7-1)3Utah (8-0)4Indiana (8-1)5Alabama (6-2)6Kentucky (7-1)7Texas (6-2)8UCLA (8-0)9BYU (7-1)10Ole Miss (6-2)11Notre Dame (7-1)12Ohio State (6-2)13Tennessee (6-2)14LSU (6-2)15Texas Tech (7-1)16Wake Forest (7-1)17Houston (6-2)18Missouri (6-2)19Iowa (6-2)20USC (7-2)21South Carolina (5-3)22Arizona (6-2)23Oregon (5-3)24Florida (5-3)25Boise State (7-1)