The College Football Playoff committee released its first rankings on Nov. 3 and they will come out with an updated list once a week until the first week of December—which will then decide the four playoff teams.
But as we learned last year, the initial rankings don’t really mean much. In fact, not until the committee releases its final rankings on Dec. 6 is there really any reason to pay attention to them.
Why?
One big reason is the CFP committee doesn’t do it the way AP rankings are traditionally done—once a team is ranked ahead of another, all they have to do is keep winning to stay ahead.
The AP’s top 25 follows a predictable formula. Win and your team moves up. If there are multiple undefeated teams (like we have right now), whatever the order is now, that order will generally stay until one of them loses and gets passed up by the rest.
This isn’t to say that the AP top 25 is more exciting to follow or anything—they just don’t determine the national champion anymore. With four playoff spots at stake, the committee’s rankings have much more riding on them.
