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Ahead of the first College Football Playoff Rankings release on Oct. 31, we will be predicting what the top 25 would look like if the CFP Selection Committee started early. It is a warmup act for the warmup act, which are the CFP Rankings releases before the final one.
Note: Predictions in this post are based only on results to this point, so they do not reflect the final forecast for the playoff, which can be found here.
Here, we will try to emphasize the same criteria the committee uses. That will be difficult because, as we have learned, the committee can be all over the map. Sometimes, it decides that head-to-head matters; sometimes, it doesn't. Sometimes, strength of schedule matters; sometimes, it doesn't. Sometimes, relative dominance matters; sometimes, it doesn't. Sometimes it's about game control -- whatever that is -- or recency bias or ... ah, you get the idea.
What we have learned is that this process is highly subjective. It is much more subjective than the process that the basketball committee uses, which is what the football committee was modeled after. With all of that in mind, here is what I think the top 25 would look like this week.
| 1 | |
| The Tide keeps rolling over everyone in their path. (Previous: 1) | |
| 2 | |
| Every Notre Dame win strengthens Georgia's position. (2) | |
| 3 | |
| The Nittany Lions dominated Michigan at home. The game that will likely determine the Big East champion is this week in Columbus, Ohio. (4) | |
| 4 | |
| The Horned Frogs played Kansas, which is a strength of schedule downer. The game got so bad that with storms approaching, they went to a running clock. (3) | |
| 5 | |
| The Hurricanes are not winning big, but they are still winning. Last week, they held off Syracuse, which was coming off the upset of Clemson. (5) | |
| 6 | |
| No team has a better collection of wins than the Tigers, thanks to a strong schedule. Quarterback Kelly Bryant should be back this week after leaving the Syracuse game with an injury. (6) | |
| 7 | |
| Notre Dame dominated USC and looks to be a serious threat to make a run at the playoffs. The Irish schedule is back-loaded, despite already having played Georgia and Michigan State prior to USC. (8) | |
| 8 | |
| The Badgers cruised to an easy win over Maryland and now face the worst team on their schedule in Illinois. However, a three game winning streak by Florida Atlantic and a Northwestern win over Iowa means that Wisconsin now has a couple of wins over teams that are above .500. (7) | |
| 9 | |
| The Spartans and Clemson are the only teams on this list with four wins over teams that are currently above .500. (10) | |
| 10 | |
| The Cowboys needed overtime to win at Texas and has another dicey road game this week at West Virginia. (9) | |
| 11 | |
| Iowa State's surge is helping the Sooners as much as their own wins at the moment. OU got a test from Kansas State but pulled it out late. (12) | |
| 12 | |
| The Hokies did what you would expect a team of their caliber to do to North Carolina, which is having a miserable season. (11) | |
| 13 | |
| The Buckeyes' schedule has been lacking, but it is about to ramp up. The only team they have beaten that is currently above .500 is Army. OSU welcomes Penn State to the Horseshoe looking for revenge for last season's loss. (14) | |
| 14 | |
| The Cougars beat slumping Colorado at home to run their record in the Palouse to 6-0. At some point, they will have to prove themselves on the road. (16) | |
| 15 | |
| The Tigers took out some frustration on Arkansas. Why should they be any different? (18) | |
| 16 | |
| Washington had a week off and will now get two home games it should win comfortably, starting with UCLA. I am not sure the Huskies can get anyone's attention until they play at Stanford. (15) | |
| 17 | |
| LSU's win over Auburn helps the Bulldogs because their win over the Tigers is their best of the season. They dominated Kentucky last Saturday and have a big game at Texas A&M this week. (21) | |
| 18 | |
| The Knights have wins over Memphis and at Navy. They are still on track for a divisional winner-take-all game with South Florida at the end of the regular season. (23) | |
| 19 | |
| The Wolfpack's best win came against Louisville, which was not looking as good before the Cards beat Florida State on Saturday. (20) | |
| 20 | |
| The Trojans started badly and got worse at Notre Dame. It will be interesting to see how they rebound from that. The Arizona schools have had a great couple of weeks and those are USC's next two opponents. (13) | |
| 21 | |
| The Cardinal have won four in a row and will look to make it five at Oregon State. They are tied for the lead in the Pac-12 North with Washington State. (19) | |
| 22 | |
| It has been a weird season for the Cyclones, which have seemed to get better once their starting quarterback, Jacob Park, took a leave of absence from the team. Since then, they have won at Oklahoma and Texas Tech. Their losses came at home to Iowa and Texas. (NR) | |
| 23 | |
| The Mountaineers have only been beaten by teams on this list, Virginia Tech and TCU, and neither came at home. They could stand for some quality wins, though, and they have a shot at a big one this week when Oklahoma State visits. (NR) | |
| 24 | |
| The Tigers have only lost at UCF and have wins over UCLA, Navy and most recently at Houston. They may get another shot at the Knights, or a first one at USF, in the AAC title game. (NR) | |
| 25 | |
| It looks like the loss to Troy served as a wakeup call for the Tigers. They have not lost since, adding a blowout win over Ole Miss on Saturday. They are off this week to prepare for Alabama. Might need more than one week to prepare for that. (25) | |
Dropped out: Michigan (17), Iowa (22), Utah (24)