Three Things To Watch For During The College Football Playoff Ranking Release

At long last, the only rankings that matter, the College Football Playoff Ranking, will be released for the first time Tuesday. What should Indiana fans look for?

Todd Golden | Nov 4, 2024

Indiana's Kurtis Rourke, left, hands the ball off to Ty Son Lawton during the second quarter on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing. / Nick King/Lansing State Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Indiana Hoosiers

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – On Tuesday, a decision that will affect the future of Hoosiers everywhere will finally reveal itself to a waiting world.

No, not the results from Election Day. We’re talking about the first College Football Playoff rankings. The rankings will be revealed at 7 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on ESPN.

For the first time, this will be must-see viewing for Indiana football fans. The unprecedented 9-0 start by Indiana, plus the expanded 12-team field, has put the Hoosiers smack dab in the middle of the playoff discussion.

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

Here’s some basic rules you should know regarding how the field is compiled:

- The five highest-rated conference champions make the field. Four of them will receive byes to the quarterfinals. It is a virtual certainty that the Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12 champions will get those four byes.

- The other seven teams are at-large selections from across FBS, and there is no limit on how many teams per conference can be chosen. Since the fifth conference champion will likely come from a spot in the rankings below the No. 11 spot, in effect, the top 11 in the rankings make the field.

- The eight teams that don’t receive byes play the first round on campus sites. The No. 5-8 seeds will host those games.

That’s how the field is filled. Here’s the CFP Selection Committee Principles they use to select and seed at-large teams:

“The committee will select the teams using a process that distinguishes among otherwise comparable teams by considering:

- Strength of schedule

- Head-to-head competition

- Comparative outcomes of common opponents (without incenting margin of victory)

- Other relevant factors such as unavailability of key players and coaches that may have affected a team’s performance during the season or likely will affect its postseason performance.

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

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

- Each committee member selects their own 30 best teams in the country. Teams listed by three or more members remain under consideration. At the conclusion of any round of voting, teams can be added if three or more committee members want to add them.

- Each member lists the six best teams. The six teams receiving the most votes comprise the pool for the first ranking step, known as the “listing step.”

- In the first ranking step, each member will rank those six teams, with one point assigned to a first-place vote and so on. The members’ rankings will be added together and the three teams with the lowest point totals will be the first three teams ranked. This process is repeated until 25 teams are ranked.

From there, the expected conference champions are identified for the top four seeds.

The CFP quarterfinals will be played at the Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, the Sugar Bowl and the Peach Bowl. When possible, teams are assigned to playoff quarterfinal games at traditional bowl sites that are most identified with the conferences they play in. So if Oregon was the No. 1 seed, it would be assigned to the Rose Bowl.

After that, the 5-12 teams are seeded in order. There is no provision to prevent conference-vs.-conference matchups in the first round. So, in theory, Indiana could play Penn State in a first-round game.

There is no one metric the committee uses for selection. All manner of data is available, but it’s a subjective decision by each committee member.

Do you have all of that? It’s a subjective process like all committee processes are. Here’s some things to look for when the rankings are revealed:

1. How Much Value Is There In Being Undefeated?

Indiana's Tyrique Tucker (95) celebrates in front of the student section after the Indiana versus Washington football game at Memorial Stadium on Oct. 26, 2024. / Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

This may seem like a silly question to ask. Why wouldn’t there be value in being undefeated?

Indiana is one of just four Power Four conference teams to have an unbeaten record. One of them, Oregon, is from 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 unbeatens are Miami of the ACC and BYU of the Big 12.

While Oregon is No. 1 in the Associated Press poll, there are one-loss teams being given more value in the AP and coaches’ polls than the other undefeated teams are getting. No. 2 Georgia and No. 3 Ohio State are one-loss teams ahead of Miami, BYU and Indiana.

It will be interesting to see how the College Football Playoff committee parses the resumes of the unbeaten teams. Anyone can cherry pick their own criteria, but what’s going to matter to the committee the most?

Will it be overall statistical excellence? Will it be margin of victory? Will it be which teams you’ve played? With large conferences, the necessity to parse in-conference strength of schedule as well as non-conference strength of schedule is more important than ever.

No one should assume that an unbeaten record writes an automatic ticket to a playoff berth. If you have any doubt, head down to Tallahassee and ask a Florida State fan about how the committee treats unbeaten teams the committee perceives to be flawed.

2. How Is The Selection Committee Going To Value Strength Of Schedule?

Indiana's Mikail Kamara (6) sacks Western Illinois' Nathan Lamb (12) during the Indiana versus Western Illinois football game at Memorial Stadium on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024. / Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK

Mentioned above, strength of schedule merits its own space given that Indiana is very vulnerable in this regard.

According to ESPN, Indiana’s current schedule strength is 103rd of 134 FBS schools – still the worst of any Power Four conference school. The nearest CFP contender to Indiana in the strength of schedule rankings is Iowa State at 83rd. Past that, Notre Dame is next at 75th.

If strength of schedule is the number one protocol on the minds of committee members, as it is instructed to be, Indiana’s weak SOS number is going to put the Hoosiers below water, but to what extent?

What will be interesting is how the committee accounts for controllable factors vs. non-controllable ones.

For example, Indiana has zero control over its Big Ten slate. Nebraska and Washington are the only winning Big Ten teams the Hoosiers have faced so far, but it’s not Indiana’s fault that it got the rub of the green as far as having favorable Big Ten opponents on its schedule is concerned. Does the committee take that into account?

On the other side of the coin, Power Four schools have complete control over their nonconference slates. Indiana’s trio of Florida International, Western Illinois and Charlotte pales in comparison to almost every competitor Indiana has in the playoff selection race.

Indiana’s state of affairs is worse given that Indiana dropped Louisville – now a top 25 team – to play Western Illinois. It was a decision made in 2023, but it could have a big impact in 2024. The committee will be aware of the fact that Indiana deliberately weakened its schedule. Giving Curt Cignetti a pass on that – he was not part of that decision – is not an outcome that should be assumed.

3. How Does The Committee Feel About The Big Ten Collectively?

Ohio State Buckeyes linebacker Cody Simon (0) tackles Penn State Nittany Lions quarterback Drew Allar (15) during the second half of the NCAA football game at Beaver Stadium in University Park, Pa. on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. Ohio State won 20-13. / Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

In response to claims about a weak schedule, some Indiana fans have retorted that a team like Penn State hasn’t beaten a current ranked team, so why should the Hoosiers be treated any worse than the Nittany Lions?

This isn’t the flex people might think it would be.

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

However, the committee won’t look at it that way. Of those four teams, Ohio State will be the only one guaranteed to have played all three of the others by season’s end. The Buckeyes’ schedule strength will be unassailable, but what about the others? How is the Big Ten bringing teams up or holding them down?

Ten teams are at .500 or better in the Big Ten. Oregon has or will play five of them, with a big win over Ohio State as its signature victory.

Penn State has or will play five, though Penn State lost its signature game to Ohio State. Indiana has or will play four of those schools. The Hoosiers’ fate likely rides on its outcome at Ohio State on Nov. 23.

The committee can be predictive about what it might think will happen, or it could assign rankings on what has happened. Given that it’s just the first ranking of the season, how the committee views those lower-tier Big Ten wins versus similar ones from other conferences will be fascinating.

The good news for Indiana and the Big Ten contenders? None of the other conferences have broken free to demonstrate their superiority, either. The larger conferences have created quite a bit of flotsam in the middle of every league. How does the committee sort all of that out?

The SEC’s perceived best out-of-conference win was the Texas victory at Michigan, but that’s been diminished by the Wolverines’ fall from grace. Georgia also beat Clemson, but the Tigers were humbled at home by Louisville on Saturday.

In fact, the SEC could be hurt by the fact that one of its contenders – LSU – lost on a neutral field to Southern California, currently 2-5 in the Big Ten.

The ACC has Miami and possibly SMU, but two of its possible teams – Clemson and Pittsburgh – both suffered damaging defeats on Saturday. The Big 12 has BYU – which defeated both SMU and Kansas State handily – but little else. Iowa State and Kansas State both suffered damaging losses over the weekend.

Notre Dame, an independent, is also hard to parse. A road win at Texas A&M is impressive, but a home loss to Northern Illinois (now 1-3 in the Mid-American Conference) is hard to explain away.

1. How Much Value Is There In Being Undefeated?

2. How Is The Selection Committee Going To Value Strength Of Schedule?

3. How Does The Committee Feel About The Big Ten Collectively?

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