Clemson (8-0, 5-0 Atlantic Coast Conference), which has not been the top-ranked football team in an Associated Press poll since just after the 1981 season, was named No. 1 in the first College Football Playoff rankings of this season, which were released Tuesday night.
Rounding out the final four were No. 2 LSU (7-0, 4-0 Southeastern Conference), No. 3 Ohio State (8-0, 4-0 Big Ten) and No. 4 Alabama (7-1, 4-1 SEC). Independent Notre Dame (7-1) was No. 5 and Baylor (7-0, 4-0 Big 12) was No. 6.
The Big 12 teams Baylor and TCU (8-0, 5-0) dropped substantially from the AP poll. Baylor went from No. 2 in the AP to No. 6, and TCU went from No. 5 to No. 8. This is bound to prove a sensitive subject with fans because those two teams both finished last season 11-1 and were the first two left out of the four-team playoff.
Jeff Long, the athletic director at Arkansas and the committee’s chairman, emphasized the preliminary nature of the rankings.
“Strength of schedule left us uncertain of those teams’ strength,” he said on ESPN, pointing to Baylor and TCU and the relatively poor standing of their opponents so far. He added, “They have their strength-of-schedules in front of them.”
In the coming month, both Baylor and TCU play undefeated Oklahoma State, ranked No. 14 by the committee, and one-loss Oklahoma, ranked 15th — as well as each other.
More broadly, the rankings merely established pecking order as top teams proceed to face one another. For instance, this Saturday, Clemson hosts Florida State, No. 16 in the playoff rankings, and LSU travels to Alabama. Two weeks later, Ohio State hosts Michigan State, the committee’s seventh-best squad.
The 12-member selection committee will release rankings every Tuesday until Sunday, Dec. 6, when they will establish the composition of the four-team playoff after the regular season and conference championship games are complete. The No. 1 and No. 4 teams and the No. 2 and No. 3 teams will play each other in the semifinals on the afternoon and night of Dec. 31 at the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl. (The No. 1 team will be placed where it has greater home-field advantage). The winners will play for the national title on Jan. 11 in Glendale, Arizona.
The committee, which includes several sitting athletic directors as well as figures like the former Nebraska coach Tom Osborne and the former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, also will establish the matchups for the Peach Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl.
The SEC dominated the initial rankings, with two teams in the top four, three in the top 10 and six overall. By contrast, the Pacific-12 had only three teams make the rankings — as many as the American Athletic Conference.
The Big Ten also placed three teams in the top 10, suggesting that if any of them — Ohio State, Michigan State or No. 9 Iowa — remain undefeated and win the conference, it will be a prime candidate for a high-ranking playoff spot.
The Pac-12, which produced last year’s runner-up, Oregon, was the only major conference to place no teams in the top 10. Its two one-loss contenders, Stanford and Utah, were ranked No. 11 and No. 12. The two could meet in the conference championship game Dec. 5; Stanford hosts Notre Dame the week before.