4 Takeaways From the Fifth CFP Rankings Launch of 2025

[ad_1] The muddled center of those rankings would possibly make mincemeat of a middling argument.

On the finish of a quite dizzying question-and-answer recreation on the Faculty Soccer Playoff rating present Tuesday night time, CFP chairman and Arkansas athletics director Hunter Yurachek was requested, much less succinctly, will the choice committee change its top-25 rankings after this weekend’s slate of convention championship video games?

"Following the championship video games, we are going to re-rank the top-25 groups, and we’ll see the place they fall," he mentioned.

See. There.

We’re arguing in regards to the advantage of groups ranked behind No. 8 Oklahoma whereas Yurachek and the committee proceed to inform us who they suppose are the 25 greatest groups within the nation. This contains the 12 they get to position right into a bracket to crown a nationwide champion, whereas they aren’t even positive about all of the groups they’ve ranked.

So Sunday will act as a pencils-down train for a boardroom full of people that I belief much less with an eye fixed check than Snake Plissken and Nick Fury — mixed.

Listed here are my takeaways from the newest Faculty Soccer Playoff rankings:

1. The ACC is the CFP choice committee’s favourite Group of 6 convention.

What the committee does appear positive about is that it sort of loathes the ACC. I hope somebody loves me as a lot as the choice committee loves 8-4 Iowa. Not a single top-25 win is current on the Hawkeyes’ resume, and their greatest win is a 41-3 blowout of Minnesota (7-5). Kirk Ferentz’s Hawkeyes sit sixth within the Huge Ten standings, which places them on equal footing with Illinois and Washington — two groups that would’ve simply been slotted right here, however, like Iowa, shouldn’t be.

If the committee appreciated ACC soccer, maybe rating Duke (7-5) at No. 22 as a substitute of Iowa would possibly’ve been a method to hedge in opposition to maybe having to field out the ACC solely as solely the highest-ranked convention champions — not Energy 4 champions — would’ve allowed the committee and ACC to avoid wasting face.

As an alternative, the committee opted to go get the nuclear launch codes. With this rating, potential ACC champion Duke may not make the CFP however potential Solar Belt champ No. 25 James Madison? Or No. 24 North Texas? And even No. 20 Tulane. These are choices. And that’s simply the Group of 6 groups.

In a kinder world, a much less petty one, I’d let you know this can be a play to get an ACC member, say No. 12 Miami, into the CFP. However seeing as the choice committee has turned down each alternative it has needed to rank Miami forward of Notre Dame — a crew it beat in Week 1 and holds the identical file of 10-2 — I'd not anticipate this committee to incorporate the ACC in its CFP, until Virginia finishes its greatest season since 1989 with its greatest season ever and first 11-win season.

2. The coziest spot within the sport is ranked No. 5 to No. 8.

No crew feels as comfy as these ranked simply behind No. 2 Indiana and simply in entrance of No. 10. They’re having fun with an additional bye week earlier than discovering out who precisely and the place precisely they'll play within the first or second spherical of the Faculty Soccer Playoff.

I contend that's the most helpful place within the sport. Not solely do you stand an opportunity of taking part in at house not like the top-4 seeds within the sport, which feels wildly unfair to No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4, however you’re seemingly going to face an opponent rested simply sufficient to really feel recent however sat nonetheless for as long as to lose type.

In final yr’s CFP, two groups that started with house video games performed for the nationwide championship, three performed within the semifinal matchups and neither of the top-2 seeds within the sport made it previous the semifinals stage. This leads me to the remainder of this takeaway.

What about Alabama and Notre Dame?

Kalen DeBoer and Alabama play for an SEC Championship in opposition to Georgia on Saturday. (Picture by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Photographs)

Again to you, Hunter Yurachek!

"I'll let you know the talk between Alabama and Notre Dame over the previous three weeks has been one of many strongest debates we’ve had within the room for the previous two years that I’ve been a member of the committee. I believe this week, as we checked out these two groups and the way carefully they've been over the previous three weeks, Notre Dame went on the street, had a robust win at Stanford.

"However Alabama went on the street in a rivalry recreation, appeared actually good, particularly within the first half, getting up 17-0, ran the ball effectively. Auburn got here again at them. They'd an incredible gutsy name on 4th-and-2 late within the third quarter to get a landing, after which acquired the turnover late in that recreation. And I believe that was sufficient to vary the minds of a few committee members to push Alabama up forward of Notre Dame on this week’s rankings."

That’s loads of speaking to say: We predict the one crew to beat Georgia at Sanford in six years is healthier than the crew that misplaced to Texas A&M at house. I’d speechwrite for you, Yurachek, however I like my present job.

3. The present 12-team CFP is displaying its weak point — like a quarter-mile crack within the Hoover Dam

A few of this was fastened — we predict, or SEC commissioner Greg Sankey hopes — with the transfer to straight seeding. Little doubt seeing Arizona State and Boise State at No. 9 and No. 12 within the choice committee rankings however elevated to the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds — as a result of it’s the format Sankey and the CFP board of managers agreed to within the first place — was jarring.

Now, the hope is that it doesn’t occur once more, and the matchups really feel fairer. And by "fairer" I imply weighted to the highest-ranked crew as a substitute of, say, No. 6 seed Ohio State making pâté out of the No. 1 seed Geese. We’ll see the way it works out in 2025.

As I wrote earlier, the Faculty Soccer Playoff format is flawed in its present state: The one applications with an opportunity to make the CFP are these ranked inside this choice committee’s prime 25. With a sport that has 136 groups — and I’ve ranked all of them as soon as this season already — we merely want a much bigger bracket, a bigger canvas, for some applications to proceed to play by means of what could possibly be not simply essentially the most memorable season of their respective histories however within the sport’s too.

This is what I wrote:

Within the 24-team mannequin proposed and gaining traction, there are as many as 31 groups nonetheless in play even throughout this primary weekend of the postseason.As an alternative, we’re gazing seven applications that seem safely positioned within the 12-team area — a far narrower group than the game may provide. And picture the choice: a playoff with 16 potential house video games. Notre Dame Stadium, Bryant-Denny Stadium and Michigan Stadium are only a few of the venues that would ship among the sport’s most electrical postseason atmospheres, particularly with national-title stakes at their peak.One other shortcoming of the 12-team format is how 10-win Energy 4 groups like Miami, Vanderbilt and Utah can nonetheless be omitted of a event they’ve genuinely earned the fitting to play in — significantly in seasons that could be amongst their most memorable.

Add Texas to this listing however solely as a result of Yurachek made one factor very clear in regards to the Longhorns’ argument for choice into the CFP.

"It is not that Texas misplaced to Ohio State — it's that Texas misplaced to Florida that is holding them again."

See that, kiddos? It’s not who you beat. It’s who you lose to that issues most.

4. Leaving Ole Miss at No. 6 is ok.

Lane Kiffin exiting like that's not.

Y’all act like we haven’t watched this man’s motion pictures for 20 years. Like this isn’t the person Al Davis warned Tennessee about, they usually nonetheless employed him, and he nonetheless made them look silly. I imply Al Davis known as Kiffin a "skilled liar." Al Davis known as him that.

Lane Kiffin took the top coach place at LSU after six seasons at Ole Miss. (Picture by Jason Homan/Icon Sportswire by way of Getty Photographs)

Sure, Ole Miss needs to be left at No. 6. In case you suppose Lane Kiffin not being part of a crew that's getting ready for its first journey to the CFP is that massive of an obstacle to its capacity to win the nationwide championship, simply inform me you’re an LSU fan and don’t waste any extra of my time. The person betrayed the values of the game that he and his teaching brethren declare are sacrosanct: He checked out a crew he coached to 11-1, 4 video games from successful the Nationwide Championship and left them for a giant pile of cash.

I don’t wish to hear yet one more phrase from anybody who want to inform me successful a championship issues extra to coaches and may matter extra to gamers. Kiffin’s yet one more instance of simply what isn’t true: Coaches are not any extra loyal to applications and universities than the gamers they recruit. These are the ethics the game is operating on.

However I refuse to penalize a bunch of individuals, together with gamers, coaches and numerous help employees and folks at Ole Miss who helped make this season into a hit as a result of Monte Kiffin’s child did what he has completed on the Oakland Raiders, Tennessee, Alabama and Ole Miss — make a large number in another person’s home. The issue with that? He’s by no means been informed to wash it up.

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