Oregon tops first rankings for College Football Playoff

A season full of surprises didn’t produce many when the first set of rankings on the road to college football’s new 12-team playoff came out Tuesday.

Undefeated Oregon got top billing. The selection committee liked Ohio State just a touch more than Georgia in its top 25 — the first of six weekly polls the committee will put out.

Other than that, the panel’s top 12 looked exactly like the top dozen in the most recent AP poll, which has been shaken up almost weekly thanks to a bundle of upsets that left the mighty SEC, of all conferences, without a single undefeated team.

The near mirror image of AP and the College Football Playoff polls meant Alabama, despite its two losses, would be in the bracket at No. 11 if it came out this week, as would Boise State, the leader of the Mountain West Conference, which came in at No. 12 and would earn an automatic spot as the fifth-best conference champion.

Ohio State was ranked No. 2 because its only loss came by one point to Oregon. Both the Buckeyes and third-ranked Bulldogs were rated ahead of undefeated Miami most likely thanks to strength of schedules that were much tougher than that of the ‘Canes, who were ranked fourth.

The rankings will come out each week through Dec. 8, when the final list will decide the bracket for the playoffs. Those start Dec. 20-21, with the 5-12 seeds in action at the better seed’s home field, and close with the national title game in Atlanta on Jan. 20.

The rankings don’t directly correlate to where the teams would fall in the bracket. The four best-ranked conference champions receive first-round byes, which according to this ranking would belong to Oregon (ranked 1), Georgia (3), Miami (4) and BYU (9).

The committee chose Alabama over a handful of one-loss teams, but the Tide’s strength of schedule clearly helped them leap over teams like No. 13 SMU (ACC), No. 17 Iowa State (Big 12) and No. 18 Pitt (ACC), who play in weaker conferences.


(Photo Kyle Green/Idaho Stateman via AP)