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I could’ve done without the first 12-team Playoff bracket, but I suppose it served a small purpose.
The first 12-team Playoff poll is out. It’s technically the same as the previous 10 years of the Playoff Top 25, though ESPN gave us what it would look like in bracket form with those current highest-ranked conference champs (projected) getting the top 4 seeds in the new 12-team Playoff.
Confused? I don’t blame you.
Here’s what the first Playoff poll looked like:
The full top 25 rankings of the first College Football Playoff reveal of the season ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/6cavXZ0aPy
— ESPN (@espn) November 6, 2024
Here are my takeaways from the first Playoff poll of 2024:
The team who should be ranked higher is ________.
“No. 9 BYU.”
I get that the Cougs are still searching for their first AP Top 10 finish in the 21st century, but No. 9 feels a bit low for an undefeated team with wins over a pair of current Playoff Top 25 teams (at No. 13 SMU, vs. No. 19 Kansas State). Indiana, Penn State, Texas and Miami don’t have a win against a single Playoff Top 25 team, yet you wouldn’t know it based on that ranking.
It felt like BYU got a raw deal in part because it didn’t have the headliner nonconference game, but that’s ironic considering it was a road win at now-No. 13 SMU. Meanwhile, Notre Dame is separated by 1 spot even though it was that horrendous Northern Illinois loss at home and 2-loss Alabama is lurking, potentially in position to leapfrog BYU if it beats No. 15 LSU in Death Valley.
BYU, to this point, looks much more like a legitimate contender than just a fun story. If the selection committee doesn’t believe that just because it doesn’t have some elite offense, that seems a bit misguided.
Also, SMU deserved more love. More on Rhett Lashlee’s squad in a second.
The team who should be ranked lower is __________.
“No. 6 Penn State.”
Ask yourself this, Lions fans. Why should Penn State be ranked ahead of undefeated teams like BYU and Indiana or even 1-loss Tennessee? Because it played a close game against Ohio State? That’s not a good enough answer when Penn State’s best win is against 4-loss Wisconsin in a battle of backup quarterbacks. Or was winning at USC in overtime the best win even though the Trojans have since moved on to their backup quarterback?
Oh, you thought I forgot about the Illinois win? Right, because playing in a 7-point game with 2 minutes to play against a 3-loss Illinois team at home screams “top-6 team.”
Shoot, even No. 13 SMU is sitting there with 2 wins against teams that are currently in the Playoff Top 25 (at No. 22 Louisville, vs. No. 18 Pitt). That résumé is better than Penn State’s, yet the selection committee put 7 spots in between those 2 1-loss teams. Fortunately for James Franklin’s squad, that means it’s in prime position to earn an at-large berth even if it doesn’t face another team that’s currently ranked.
Notre Dame’s No. 10 ranking is extremely important for those at-large teams
If you’re in the Big Ten and the SEC, you should be following that Notre Dame ranking closely. Starting at No. 10 felt like a slight win for those teams because there’s at least some acknowledgment of the Northern Illinois loss. If Notre Dame had started at No. 7-8, that game would’ve felt like a mulligan. Maybe that’ll still prove to be the case, but at No. 10, Notre Dame feels like a “you’d better be 11-1 to get in” team.
Remember, Notre Dame can only get an at-large bid as an independent. That means that Marcus Freeman’s squad is competing for a 5-12 seed. The path to get there won’t be a given, but it’s somewhat favorable. Go figure that No. 25 Army is the only remaining team on the Irish’s schedule that currently has a winning record. After how lopsided the Irish won against Navy, that might not feel as daunting against another service academy.
Notre Dame can block a team like Texas A&M after it won at Kyle Field to open the season. For fans of potential at-large teams who could also be on the outside looking in during conference championship weekend, rooting for the Irish to falter once more is obvious. It’s clear that a Notre Dame team that has 2 wins against current Playoff Top 25 teams (vs. No. 22 Louisville and at No. 14 Texas A&M) isn’t being written off.
What probably won out in the Georgia-Ohio State debate for No. 2
I don’t believe “quality of loss” was the No. 1 factor in deciding between Georgia and Ohio State for No. 2. Of course, that would favor the Buckeyes with their lone blemish coming at No. 1 Oregon while UGA fell at No. 11 Alabama.
But what was the deciding factor? Recency bias. Ohio State is days removed from winning on the road against a Penn State team that the selection committee clearly respects. Georgia, meanwhile, is days removed from needing to rally to beat a depleted Florida team in Jacksonville. If we were days removed from Georgia’s win at Texas and Ohio State’s nail-biter against Nebraska, those spots would’ve been flipped.
Does that matter in the grand scheme of things? Nah. Kirby Smart probably prefers that his team is ranked No. 3 instead of No. 2. Georgia is in the conference with 8 of its teams in the first Playoff Top 25. UGA has upcoming games against 2 of those teams in the next 2 weeks (at No. 16 Ole Miss, vs. No. 7 Tennessee). Even if it splits those 2 games, UGA would be in prime position for a 10-2 at-large bid.
Ohio State, on the other hand, will still get to take on potentially undefeated No. 8 Indiana before that all-important game against Michigan to close the regular season. And if the Buckeyes run the pre-Playoff table with a win in a rematch against Oregon, that No. 1 seed will be imminent.
For now, though, all that mattered on Tuesday night was that we got a Playoff poll to get upset about. Cheers to that.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Tradition. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.