Projecting Where BYU Will Land In First College Football Playoff Top 25
Nov 3, 2024, 8:16 PM
College Football Playoff trophy at Big 12 media days. (Mitch Harper, KSL Sports)
(Mitch Harper, KSL Sports)
PROVO, Utah – It’s that time of the year when the College Football Playoff Top 25 rankings become a weekly occurrence.
The first Top 25 poll of the 12-team College Football Playoff era will be revealed on Tuesday, November 5. Every week until the final 12-team playoff bracket is finalized on Sunday, December 8, we will get a new Top 25 torn down each week and built from scratch.
BYU football enters the initial playoff ranking as one of five remaining undefeated teams in the nation.
The AP and Coaches poll voters haven’t been too impressed with BYU’s 8-0 start. BYU only ranks at No. 9 in both polls.
How will the Playoff Committee rank BYU?
It’s an interesting thought.
BYU has some positive pieces on its resume for the committee to pour over.
Positives on the BYU football resume
Along with being an undefeated team, BYU’s week two victory over SMU looks better as the weeks go by. The Mustangs are 8-1 this season and are 5-0 in the ACC.
SMU is one of two teams in ACC play with an undefeated conference record. The other is Miami.
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BYU’s win over Kansas State in September took a slight hit, with the Wildcats falling to Houston this past weekend. Despite the unexpected setback, K-State should be in the Top 25 of the Playoff rankings on Tuesday night.
That would give BYU two victories over Top 25 teams.
Depending on how the rankings shake out, that’s more than Ohio State and Miami combined.
BYU’s strength of record and game control metrics also help the university’s case to be higher than where the AP and Coaches’ polls currently have them.
ESPN FPI ranks BYU’s strength of record fourth nationally, behind only Georgia, Oregon, and Miami. Their “Game Control” ranking is No. 8.
Old BCS computer rankings such as Colley Matrix have BYU at No. 4 in the nation and Billingsley rankings put BYU at No. 7.
Knocks on BYU
Other computer ratings are not as high on BYU. Sagarin ratings have the undefeated Cougars at No. 21, and ESPN FPI tabs BYU at No. 28.
BYU’s strength of schedule ranking is mixed. The Sagarin ratings have BYU at No. 41, while ESPN FPI places BYU’s schedule at No. 61.
I’m projecting BYU at No. 8 in the College Football Playoff Top 25 rankings in the initial release.
There’s an argument to be made for BYU to be in the Top 5, but I expect the committee to lean heavily into the SEC and Big Ten teams, despite some advanced computer ratings, like Sagarin, having the Big 12 as the second-best league in the first ten weeks.
How the 12-team Playoff works
The 2024 season welcomes a new format to the College Football Playoff. Instead of four teams, the Playoff will now have 12 teams.
There are no automatic bids to any specific conference. Instead, the five highest-ranked conference champions (regardless of conference) receive automatic bids.
Within those five champions, the four highest-ranked earn first-round byes and will earn the top four seeds in the bracket.
The rest of the field consists of the highest-ranked at-large teams, and there is no cap on the number of teams selected from one conference.
Games between seeds five to 12 will be played on college campus venues. The host school can elect to play a game at an alternate location, but it seems unlikely that any school would turn down the chance to have an on-campus game played in December at their home stadium.
The College Football Playoff expands to 12 teams this season. Hear from @ESPN‘s @KirkHerbstreit and learn how the bracket will play out from the CFP First Round through the 2025 CFP #NationalChampionship, slated for Monday, January 20 at Atlanta’s @MBStadium.#CFBPlayoff 🏈🏆 pic.twitter.com/Fd1tbkwy4f
— College Football Playoff (@CFBPlayoff) July 22, 2024
Quarterfinal games will be played at bowl locations that include the Rose, Sugar, Peach, and Fiesta Bowls.
The Semifinals will be played at the Orange and Cotton Bowls, with the Playoff culminating in Atlanta on January 20 for the National Championship game.
There will be no reseeding in the bracket as winners advance.
College Football Playoff Top 25 Projection
The following is my projection for how I believe the Top 25 will look when the Playoff Committee rolls out the rankings on Tuesday at 5 p.m. (MST).
In this projection, the highest-ranked team from a conference will be the assumed conference champion.
1. Oregon (No. 1 seed)
2. Georgia (No. 2 seed)
3. Ohio State (No. 5 seed)
4. Texas (No. 6 seed)
5. Miami (No. 3 seed)
6. Penn State (No. 7 seed)
7. Indiana (No. 8 seed)
8. BYU (No. 4 seed)
9. Tennessee (No. 9 seed)
10. Notre Dame (No. 10 seed)
11. Alabama (No. 11 seed)
12. SMU (First Team Out)
13. Ole Miss
14. Boise State (No. 12 seed)
15. Clemson
16. Texas A&M
17. Iowa State
18. LSU
19. Army West Point
20. Vanderbilt
21. Kansas State
22. Washington State
23. Minnesota
24. Colorado
25. Louisville
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and hosts the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (12–3 p.m.) on KSL Newsradio. Follow Mitch’s coverage of BYU in the Big 12 Conference on X: @Mitch_Harper.
