Alabama ranked first in the primary College Football Playoff Rankings, followed by Notre Dame, Clemson, and Ohio State, while BYU emerged at number 14 despite having a 9-0 start to its season.
Nick Saban, Crimson Tide, is among the four SEC teams that appeared in the top nine of the initial classification, along with fifth place in Texas A&M, No. 6 in Florida, and No. 9 Georgia, the highest losing team twice despite defeats Double digits for Alabama and Florida. Clemson, who lost her only game to Notre Dame in two additional terms while playing without starting the midfielder Trevor Lawrence, Is the team with the highest rated single loss.
Despite BYU appearing behind three losing teams – Georgia, No. 11 Oklahoma and No. 13 Iowa – Cincinnati received a more favorable initial ranking at No. 7, despite playing a lesser game than BYU. Bearcats have won the league over SMU, Memphis, UCF, Houston, East Carolina and South Florida, and on December 12 they are scheduled to visit Tulsa, which debuted at number 25 in the CFP Rankings.
The original BYU schedule for 2020 featured matches against six Power 5 opponents – Utah, Michigan, Arizona, Minnesota, Missouri and Stanford – all canceled when the Pac-12, Big Ten and SEC only went to the league tables due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a FBS Independent, BYU revised its schedule and beat Boise State, Houston, Navy and Troy, winning all but one of its matches by 17 points or more and beating opponents 428-125 for this season.
CFP selection committee chairperson Gary Barta, who has appeared in the ESPN ratings show, noted that the committee “was definitely impressed by BYU,” but acknowledged that “the schedule went into effect”.
The Cougars have open dates both this week and next week, and they only have one game left for the regular season, December 12th against San Diego State. BYU is # 8 in this week’s AP and Coaches poll.
Two 5-team undefeated teams are ranked behind BYU at No. 20 Coastal Carolina and No. 21 Marshall.
Ohio State (4-0) is the highest-ranked team in the Big Ten in the CFP Rankings, followed by No. 8 Northwestern, which is leading 5-0 and is likely to face Buckeyes in the Big Ten Championship match for the second time in three seasons. The Big Ten tied with the SEC for most teams in the Premier League with five, and also featured No. 12 Indiana, No. 16 Wisconsin and No. 24 Iowa.
ACC placed three teams in the top ten of the initial classification, with Miami (7-1) debuting at 10th despite losing 42-17 to Clemson. North Carolina, which hosts Notre Dame on Friday, appears in 19th place.
Oklahoma and Iowa are the highest ranked in the Big 12, which also ranks Texas (No. 17) and Oklahoma (No. 23) in the top 25.
Pac-12, FBS ‘last convention to start the 2020 season, has only two teams in the first CFP Top 25 at No. 15 in Oregon and No. 18 USC, both 3-0. Two Pac-12 teams are undefeated in Washington (2-0) and Colorado (2-0) not ranked.
The CFP Selection Committee is scheduled to release its rankings on December 1, December 8 and December 15, before announcing the final selections on December 20. The conference championship matches and other competitions are scheduled to take place on December 18 and December 19.
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