Will the first College Football Playoff rankings of 12-team era favor Big Ten, SEC?

Tuesday nights College Football Playoff Top 25 rankings will surely be the most picked-apart first installment of a season since the CFP debuted in 2014.

Its the committees first time doing this with a real-life 12-team bracket in the offing.

Its also the committees first set of rankings in the new era of superconferences, where the SEC and Big Ten are trying to position themselves as superior to everyone else.

How much will the logo patch on a jersey shape the committees opinion of a team? Advertisement You can come from a conference thats got an awful lot of Top 25 teams, but not have played very many of them and vice versa, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said.

The focus is on individual teams, not conferences, and your resume stands on its own.

Behind the scenes, some administrators are concerned the Big Ten and SEC have raised pressure on the committee by suggesting their teams should be treated differently.

Before finalizing the CFPs new six-year, $7.8 billion ESPN deal that begins in 2026, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti was already lobbying for a bigger field (14 or 16 teams) with three or more automatic berths for both his league and the SEC.

By nature, (the committee) is not scientific.

Its not based on any hardcore record, he said at Big Ten media days this summer.

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So, thats why I think if you look at it, being able to qualify more off your conference record makes more sense.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey was miffed last December that the committee didnt include two SEC teams, Alabama and Georgia , in its four-team field.

Sankey has not yet called for multiple automatic berths in a bigger field like Petitti but has indicated hell watch the committee closely.

Theres a weight on the committee thats new.

I want to see how the committee processes that, he said during the SECs spring meetings.

And my encouragement is that this, Well, we have an undefeated team so theyre in is not the standard.

It never was the standard.

The committee gave its first hint of how this season might look with its initial rankings of the 2023 season .

The first 23 teams were ordered precisely by number of losses, and the first three undefeated teams, first six (out of seven) one-loss teams and first two-loss team were all current members of the Big Ten or SEC.

But bigger conferences also mean more unbalanced schedules and the discrepancy is already evident within both leagues.

Georgia (7-1), which has faced 7-1 Texas , 6-2 Clemson and 6-2 Alabama, has played the third-toughest schedule nationally, according to The Athletic s Austin Mock .

Whereas Tennessee (7-1), which has faced Alabama but no other currently ranked team, has the No.

59 schedule.

Advertisement I am curious about how much simply being in the superpower conferences might mean with how the committee is going to handle teams, said Brian Fremeau, creator of the FEI efficiency ratings .

The SEC and Big Ten rightfully are perceived to be the best conferences, but not everyones resume to date would suggest theyve necessarily played a gauntlet simply by being in those two conferences.

GO DEEPER College Football Playoff 2024 projections: Indiana rise continues as Clemson falls out Two teams in particular figure to be early litmus tests for the committee: BYU and Indiana .

The 8-0 Cougars are No.

9 in the AP poll, lower than five one-loss teams from the Big Ten and SEC.

But their resume includes a road win at 8-1 SMU and a home blowout of 7-2 Kansas State .

The two best wins to date for Penn State , one of the one-loss teams ranked above BYU, were against 6-3 Illinois and at 5-4 Wisconsin .

The 9-0 Hoosiers, one spot above BYU in the AP poll, have a different profile entirely.

Their schedule strength is 82nd, but theyve won each of their games by at least 14 points, with an average victory margin of 47-14.

If you put a different helmet on them, said Fremeau of Indiana, theres no question they would be in the (AP) top five at this point.

One ACC team to keep an eye on farther down the list: Louisville .

The Cardinals, ranked No.

25 in the AP poll after knocking off Clemson, already have three losses, but theyve also played four current Top 25 teams, two of them, Notre Dame and Miami , in the top 10.

Might they jump above some two-loss teams? Two former committee members, Miami AD Dan Radakovich and Kansas State AD Gene Taylor, said the rankings process should be no different than before.

While the conferences can submit materials to a designated point person (not from their own league) on the committee, they said the members are immune to conference lobbying efforts.

Advertisement I really trust the committee, because Ive been on it and that never comes into play, said Taylor.

I know the committee does not worry about what conference.

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Its just like, is this team good enough to be in the Top 25? Is it good enough to be No.

10? And thats all they focus on.

The commissioners agreed to table the expansion/automatic bids discussion until after this years Playoff, but many expect Petitti and possibly Sankey to attempt to formalize special treatment for the leagues if the committee doesnt do it for them.

We havent had any discussion about format in a long period of time, said Phillips.

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When you look at championships in general, there are no predetermined outcomes.

Theyre not artificially put together.

Theyre structured based on performance during that particular season.

I think the general public believes that.

Its how all championships are basically run.

GO DEEPER Could Deion Sanders, Colorado sneak into field? College Football Playoff Bubble Watch As longtime viewers of the Tuesday night rankings shows know well, the committee can move teams around each week however they see fit.

The only show that truly matters is the last one on Dec.

8.

But with so much change hitting at once this season, Tuesdays rankings will serve as the first window into how theyll assemble a 12-team field.

There will invariably be controversy, regardless of which conference your team resides in.

At the end of the day, we (the ACC) have got to win football games as a league.

So does the Big 12, said Radakovich.

I dont buy the whole cannibalism piece within some of the other leagues, but well see how the committee people look at it.

(Photo: Adam Cairns / Columbus Dispatch / USA Today via Imagn Images).

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