4 Takeaways From the Fourth CFP Rankings Launch of 2025

[ad_1] The most recent set of School Soccer Playoff rankings gave us contemporary solutions … and loads of contemporary questions.

The highest feels settled, the center is a large number, the ACC is struggling for relevance, and, in some way, head-to-head outcomes proceed to get ignored by the choice committee.

Listed here are my takeaways from the most recent School Soccer Playoff rankings.

1. Michigan nonetheless controls a path to the CFP

No. 1 Ohio State at No. 15 Michigan. It’s so good that they may play it twice.

The proof of that is that it seems much more doubtless, primarily based on these rankings, that the Wolverines can win their approach into the 12-team bracket with a fifth consecutive win towards the Buckeyes.

It’s one among a handful of cleanly laid out paths for entry into the CFP, with the highest three groups wanting an increasing number of like digital locks for choice into the bracket. For top-ranked Ohio State, No. 2 Indiana and No. 3 Texas A&M, it’s only a matter of the place they are going to be seeded following subsequent weekend’s convention championships.

However then there’s this: The Wolverines have a path to not simply play within the CFP, however face OSU for a second-straight week within the Large Ten title sport. If Michigan beats Ohio State and Oregon and Indiana each lose, Michigan would play Ohio State for the Large Ten Championship.

2. As soon as once more … the committee’s logic doesn’t match what occurred on the sector

For 3 weeks, we’ve watched this assortment of fits ignore the basic fact of this sport, finest articulated within the type of a easy query: Did you beat your opponent or did you lose to your opponent?

The reply is binary — sure or no.

In school soccer, we respect profitable greater than some other sport on the planet. We crave undefeated groups solely to argue about which undefeated staff is healthier. And for greater than 100 years, that was the perfect we might do. However now, once we can watch two groups line up and settle it on the sector in actual time, this committee has chosen — repeatedly — to disregard the one nice arbiter of Who Is Higher.

Notre Dame will not be a greater staff than Miami.

Miami is a greater staff than Notre Dame.

We all know this as a result of they performed one another at Arduous Rock Stadium, and the Hurricanes defeated the Combating Irish 27–24 on August 31.

Miami. Beat. Notre Dame.

"[They] had been in contrast this week," CFP committee chairman and Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek mentioned, "however they're in contrast in the identical pod with Alabama and a one-loss BYU, and the committee nonetheless feels that Notre Dame is an entire staff and has been constant all through the season and deserves to be ranked the place they're, at No. 9, forward of Alabama… after which Miami falls in accordingly."

That’s a great distance of claiming: We don’t care concerning the scoreboard. We don’t care about details. We don’t care about actuality.

3. Win and also you're in

Georgia, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Oregon and Alabama all be part of Michigan as one- or two-loss groups that may win this weekend and really feel as relaxed as anybody can about their probabilities of making the CFP.

For Oklahoma, that’s the best final result. For the remainder, there are nonetheless eventualities in play that might ship them into their convention title video games with Saturday wins.

4. The choice committee would not appear to care concerning the ACC

What’s wild concerning the ACC is that none of its members have a practical path to the CFP as at-large groups.

Virginia and SMU have the only routes to the ACC title sport: beat Virginia Tech and Cal, respectively, and so they’re in. However there are nonetheless numerous eventualities wherein these two — together with Pittsburgh, Georgia Tech, Duke and even (or particularly) Miami — might attain the convention championship with the fitting mixture of losses elsewhere and the quirks of in-conference energy of schedule.

If that sounds convoluted, it’s as a result of it's. And there’s a greater approach.

It’s known as a 24-team School Soccer Playoff.

RJ Younger is a nationwide school soccer author and analyst for FOX Sports activities. Observe him @RJ_Young.

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