College Football Playoff Rankings Prediction: Oregon, Georgia, Ohio State at the top in the first release of the 12-team era

Finally the day of the decision has come. No, not The Decision. Well, that too, but I'm talking about the first College Football Playoff rankings of the 2024 season. The process for the committee is the same as always, but more teams in the rankings will be relevant to the playoff discussion as this season marked the beginning of the 12-team era.

The team I'm most excited to see on Tuesday is Indiana, which has -200 betting odds to get into the 12-team CFP field, according to DraftKings Sportsbook. We're used to the selection committee dealing with non-Power Four teams with eye-catching records and terrible schedules; Army fits this pattern this season. By Power Four standards, the Hoosiers' schedule is terrible. I don't recall the committee having to evaluate a Power Four team this late in the season with a strength of schedule approaching 100, which is a major disadvantage.

At the same time, however, Indiana has largely dominated its opponents, failing to win by fewer than 14 points – and we know the committee likes dominance. The Hoosiers have the highest average winning margin over FBS opponents this season.

How the committee balances these things relative to the rest of the field will be the most important thing we learn on Tuesday night.

The top five conference champions automatically receive a CFP spot, while the top four receive first-round byes. The top seven remaining teams in the rankings will be ranked accordingly as overall teams.

Before we get started, here are some of the criteria the CFP takes into account in addition to a team's record:

• Conference Championships
• Head to head
• Strength of schedule
• Play against common opponents
• Results against ranked opponents

Luckily, the committee's definition of “senior opponents” is different than what you're used to. The rankings used for this standard are the previous week's CFP rankings. They do not use rankings at the time the game is played from their own rankings or any other survey.

In fact, the committee specifically prohibits the use of polls based on preseason, which excludes the AP Top 25 and Coaches Poll. Not only do they not try to replicate these surveys, they don't even use them.

Trying to sort out the strength of the schedule will be a bigger chore for the committee this season than in the past. Sure, they'll be able to use an SOS metric, but getting into the details can cause some headaches. Because the four major conferences now each consist of 16 or more teams, teams within the conference play very different schedules.

For example, in the SEC, Ole Miss plays Georgia at home and at LSU, a game they have already lost. It's possible that none of the other conference teams on their schedule finish the season with more than seven total wins. Meanwhile, Georgia has a schedule that includes trips to Ole Miss, Texas and Alabama as well as a home game against Tennessee.

Also note that “game control” is not one of the criteria. That's never been the case, but it's a term that comes out of the committee chair's mouth fairly regularly when discussing why a team is ranked where it is. Even if the chairman does not use this term specifically, he finds other ways to describe it.

Although scoring margin is not a specific factor, the committee emphasizes dominance, which is also a result of game control.

Ultimately, this is a subjective process guided by some objective data. There are 13 committee members and each may evaluate the data points differently than their colleagues.

With that in mind, I think this week's rankings will look like this. It's top-heavy with SEC and Big Ten teams, but that's the strength of college football. Get used to it, as the gap will likely increase over time.

References to “rankings” refer to that week’s AP Top 25, but that’s just out of curiosity; I don't use it to evaluate the teams. Once the CFP rankings are released, I will use them as a reference going forward.

Note: This forecast is based only on previous results. It does not reflect the final prediction for the playoffs. The complete bowl playoffs and bowl predictions through the end of the season can be found here.

College Football Playoff Rankings Prediction

First five out (alphabetical order): Army, Colorado, Syracuse, Tulane, UNLV