Welcome to the first of five weeks of College Football Playoff frustration. The selection committee released its first Top 25 of the season Tuesday, and with five more to go until Selection Sunday, there's plenty to digest. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, so a quick lesson before we overreact to the first rankings of the 2026 season.
Last season taught us a clear lesson: never take a team's ranking at face value until Selection Sunday. It's easy to forget the magic trick the CFP pulled last fall, when they proved head-to-head results matter only when convenient. For five weeks, Miami trailed Notre Dame in the CFP's Top 25, even though the Hurricanes owned a head-to-head win in Week 1.
On Selection Sunday, the CFP committee finally flipped the two, and Miami earned the final at-large spot in the playoff, jumping two spots despite not playing in the ACC Championship Game. The committee's feelings — fueled by internal debate — were supported by their myriad metrics. Those metrics, by the way, are not available for public consumption.
On Tuesday night, we discovered a new metric that will fuel disruption: the strength-of-conference rating. History says no, because the committee changes its mind week to week. If you're upset your favorite team is ranked lower than it deserves, or if you're frustrated that a rival is slotted higher than it deserves, don't fret.
Both can change at any time, based on one of many lines of logic supported by endless proprietary data the CFP sees, but you don't. The warning signs have been visible for years. "Obviously, college football has the most passionate fan bases across the country," CFP selection chairman Hunter Yurachek explained mere moments after the CFP pushed Miami ahead of Notre Dame last December.
"Everyone can spin the metrics in favor of the team or teams that they support. So you're always going to have controversy. " Here's what we didn't like about the first iteration of the CFP's Top 25 released Tuesday night, before an impactful Week 10 slate of games: The SEC lobbied hard over the last two years to introduce new metrics for the committee to use.
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