College Football Playoff Rankings reaction: Notre Dame among underrated teams slighted, SEC's efforts succeed

The selection committee gave the SEC plenty of love with its new metric, leaving Notre Dame with no room for error and two-loss Alabama sitting way too high Nov 3, 2026 at 8:19 pm ET • 6 min read 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.Why? 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. Will that stick? History says no, because the committee changes its mind week to week. So, buckle up. 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.Feel hopeless? Don't! Embrace debate! 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:For better or worse, the SEC's lobbying workedThe SEC lobbied hard over the last two years to introduce new metrics for the committee to use. Well, it worked. The strength-of-conference metric has apparently been the buoy that lifted the conference to heights no other power conference has been afforded. All six two-loss SEC teams are ranked higher than they are in both the AP and coaches polls this week. Two two-loss teams (No. 5 Alabama and No. 7 Texas) rank higher than undefeated UCLA at No. 8.Heck, the SEC has the highest-ranked two- and three-loss teams with Alabama and No. 21 South Carolina. If a 24-team playoff were played tonight, nine of 16 teams (!) from the SEC would be in the field.The issue here is the CFP said this new data point would be an enhancement, not necessarily a new metric, but it played out Tuesday as the biggest differentiator between the SEC teams and everyone else. The declaration when it was introduced months ago and the rankings released Tuesday do not match. If this strength-of-conference metric continues to carry weight, expect some peeved-off fans in the other conferences at the end of the season.The committee continues to slight Notre DameIf it wasn't clear already, the Fighting Irish can't afford a loss this week against No. 1 Miami. Notre Dame debuted at No. 11 in the initial rankings, and the reasoning was simple."They don't have that signature win," Yurachek said Tuesday. Still, that's a bit low, right? That's a full seven spots lower than the AP poll, by far the biggest difference in the initial CFP Rankings. The loss to BYU hurts, and the Cougars' subsequent loss at UCF doesn't help, but why the disconnect from voters in the AP and coaches polls?The Irish have only one game remaining against a top 25 team: Miami this week. That win will be enough to lift the Irish into the playoff, and I suspect they will be in the top five with a victory against the Hurricanes on Saturday, but the margin for error is absolute zero. SMU tumbling out of the AP rankings with a loss to Syracuse last week hurts the Irish, who face the Mustangs later this season. I counter with Indiana at No. 4. The Hoosiers' resume is not strong, much like their in-state rivals, so why are we rewarding the reigning national champions while punishing the Irish?This sets up another disappointment for the Irish, one way or another. Even with a win against Miami, something tells me Notre Dame could slide in the rankings in the third, fourth and fifth rankings before Selection Sunday. The committee has done it before with teams that keep winning. Heck, it happened to the Irish last season. Strength of record matters.Alabama is overratedNo. 5 Alabama is hanging its hat on a — *checks notes* — road win at Kentucky. The two-loss Tide debuted four spots higher than they were ranked in the AP and coaches polls. The Tide are 2-2 against teams in the CFP's Top 25. The committee chairman said they were impressed by Alabama's win at Mississippi State. Huh? Remember, MSU was not at full strength; quarterback Kamario Taylor was injured, and the Bulldogs went winless in October. How is that a signature win? It meets none of the criteria the committee examines.Six — six! — teams below Alabama own better records against the CFP Top 25.We expected Kentucky to be ranked higher with one loss than Alabama with two, even with the head-to-head win. Then again, the committee doesn't weigh head-to-head results as much as we assume. Yurachek admitted that Tuesday while discussing Indiana and Ohio State's head-to-head matchup in which the Buckeyes won.Ohio State should be angryIf the playoff started today, Ohio State would not be a participant. The same Buckeyes team that defeated reigning national champion Indiana, now No. 4 in the CFP's rankings, appeared at No. 12 and the first team out of the field. The Buckeyes own the nation's ninth-best strength of record and 18th-best schedule, according to the same numbers ESPN flashes across the screen as they reveal the CFP rankings. Amazingly, only two Big Ten teams are in the CFP today compared to the SEC's five. Talk all you want about Ohio State playing without quarterback Julian Sayin, but the Buckeyes defeated Indiana on the road in the fourth quarter without their starter."We never got to a point where we were comparing Indiana and Ohio State in their head-to-head," Yurachek said Tuesday night. Oh, boy. That won't sit well in Columbus, Ohio.We need to talk about UCLAUCLA is undefeated and ranks eighth. Utah is undefeated and ranks third. They're five spots apart. And there's one big difference – but it actually favors the Bruins.UCLA's strength of schedule ranks 77th. Utah is 83rd. So, why are the Bruins five spots lower? I understand Utah being higher because of its recent win against Houston, but the metrics seem to favor the Bruins elsewhere, and they've done it several weeks playing their backup quarterback.Where's New Mexico?New Mexico is the only team ranked in the AP poll (22nd) to not appear in the CFP's Top 25. That's not shocking, but why are three teams with three losses ranked above a one-loss Mountain West team whose only loss was by a touchdown on the road to the SEC's Oklahoma? After all, the committee showed Tuesday night that the SEC is the toughest conference in the country, so why isn't New Mexico rewarded with a top-25 ranking?