CFB PLAYOFF RANKINGS RELEASE 2021 & THE CFP 8 & 13 TEAM RANKINGS FORMULAS

CFB PLAYOFF RANKINGS RELEASE

The first CFB Playoff rankings will be released on Tuesday November 24th, 2020 by the CFB Playoff committee and I expect the top four teams to be Alabama, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Clemson. I still believe that Texas A&M should be in the fourth slot, as they were able to defeat the 6th ranked Gators and their only loss has come to now the consensus number one team in the nation, the Alabama Crimson-Tide. The Aggies have won four games in a row in the brutal SEC conference, but sadly will not get a shot at the SEC crown and are one of the hottest teams in the nation. The Tigers also rightfully deserve the spot as their only loss came to the number two nationally ranked Notre Dame Fighting-Irish, while not having the leader of their offensive arsenal Trevor Lawrence. With the Tigers only top 25 win coming over the 12th ranked Miami Hurricanes and Texas A&M's coming against the 6th ranked Florida Gators, I only feel it is justifiable to leave them at number four in the College Football Today & ESPN Plus FBS Top 25. This is why many are in favor of a newly revised College Football Playoff system, that would feature 8 to 11 deserving teams like we currently have during this tumultuous 2020 CFB season. ​

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COLLEGE FB PLAYOFF RANKINGS

In the first College FB playoff rankings, I believe the Bearcats and BYU both will be ranked ahead of the Gators and possibly even Texas A&M. The CFB playoff committee simply values having an undefeated record and it holds weight with former CFB All-American's like Ronnie Lott and John Urschel. Also, the former Head Coaches on the selection committee like former Texas A&M Head Coach R.C Slocum and Ken Hatfield, also know how hard it is to be a consistent winner throughout the course of a college football season. This is why we could see the likes of the Aggies and Gators drop from their standings in the College Football Today & ESPN Plus Top 25, as well as the AP & Coaches Top 25 polls. With all of that being said, strength of schedule is also a deciding factor and the Aggies and Gators both have each won one game against a current Top 25 opponent, while playing in one of the toughest conferences from top to bottom. The only slight difference happens to be, the Aggies won head to head in College Station and out of all the one loss teams, both the Gators and Aggies have the best resume's to present at this juncture of the college football season. The Bearcats longevity of being a dominant team and boasting a 29-5 record the last three seasons, also will hold weight with the CFB Playoff committee and it will be highly intriguing how this first CFB Playoff rankings release pans out come Tuesday, November 24th. 

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2021 CFP TOP 25 RANKINGS

The College Football Today 2021 CFP top 25 rankings will be released after week four of the 2021-2022 college football season. 

When the CFP top 25 rankings are released, I believe we will see the top 8 teams listed below and 4 through 8 could be in any given order. With College Football Today 14th ranked Northwestern beating Top 25 Wisconsin and moving to 5-0 on the season, I believe they could potentially climb into the top 10 of the 2020 CFP top 25 rankings and leap frog Miami, Oregon and Georgia. Indiana will not drop too far in any top 25 rankings, due to the fact they gave the 3rd ranked Buckeyes all they could handle in the Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio. Given tonight's game's have not ended yet, we will post the remaining 2020 CFP top 25 ranking projections after all games have concluded. The Coach Whittingham led Utah Utes are a team that is highly talented and are facing off currently against Top 25 opponent the USC Trojans. Top 25 ranked Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are starting the 2nd half of Bedlam and top 25 Liberty, as well as Auburn are still slugging it out in week 13 of the college football season. 
1. Alabama
2. Notre Dame
3. Ohio State
4. Clemson
5. Texas A&M
6. Cincinnati
7. Florida
8. BYU 
9. Miami
10. Northwestern
11. Oregon
12. Indiana
13. Coastal Carolina
14. Oklahoma
15. Iowa State
16. Georgia
17. USC (if they beat Utah)
18. Marshall
19. Texas
20. Washington
21. Auburn
22. Louisiana
23. Tulsa
24. Wisconsin
25. North Carolina or Colorado 

CFP RANKINGS FORMULA

If your lost on who you should rank where, just create a CFP rankings formula that is used by College Football Today & ESPN+ to properly rank the exact same Top 25 as the AP poll last week. This week, 24 out of 25 teams were both in the AP & CFB Today 25. The only slight difference, is North Carolina entered the AP Top 25 and the Washington Huskies entered the CFB Today Top 25. I am not sure what methodology they use, but here is how we rank the top 25 CFB teams. You can read how this methodology and formula came to fruition in my last article on College Football Today by clicking HERE!
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"In sports and in life, there are many things that will appear like you can't win on paper or by the public opinion. That's when you must think outside the box and outflank them by using strategies that have never historically been used in the past. Once you confuse them enough, you have them pinned in a corner exactly where you want them and can deploy weapons of mass confusion that are 100% fact based. The keys to beating an opponent that is much stronger on paper, only come from a high level of strategy, thinking and a persistent effort to learn new tactics that can fully expose your opposition. Once they understand your full strategy, you must always add to your equation/formula and stay ahead of their stagnant ways of thinking." Coach Merf Trout
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(R)+(QW)+(SOS)+(HTH)+(ET)+(PF)+(PA) = CFP TOP 25 RANK

(R) = Record
​ This is one is pretty simple, equate how many games were won or lost to the remainder of the algorithm below.

(QW) = Quality Wins
 Judging by top 25 teams defeated and how much team won by. This is also done by tallying up the wins and losses of opponents defeated, as well as opponents lost to. For example, USC's quality win over formerly ranked preseason top 25 opponent Utah moved them up substantially in the CFB Today Top 25 poll this week. Oregon had a mid-quality victory over UCLA, but only won by 3 points. A win is a win, unless your ranking the Top 25 correctly. 

(SOS) = Strength of Schedule 
Comparing strength of schedule can be easily accomplished by how many teams are in the top 25 that team plays and by looking at teams opponents schedule and their wins & losses. If things are real tight, you can even go look deeper and look at the opponent or the opponents match-ups and study their strength of schedule. As you will see below, parts of the above algorithm can be wiped out by (ET) and (HTH). 

(HTH) = Head To Head 
If you have teams that have competed head to head with the same record and both have the same sum total of the above, you must account for head to head match-ups to break the tie. If the head to head match-up happens to exist at the top of the rankings, you must add points by using the week to week eye test. Last time I checked, football is a game that normally is won between the white lines. There just happens to be a million variables in a daily week in college or pro football, that can drastically change the outcome of a team's performance. These variable have to be accounted for in this formula. 

(ET) = Eye Test
When it all boils down to indecisiveness in the formula, you must go by what you visibly see out top 25 teams week to week.  For example, a team like the Oklahoma Sooners who has woken up from their early season slumbers and the Longhorns, who are on a collision course with another top 25 team in the Big 12 Iowa State this weekend. The Cyclones look like a totally different ball team from early on in the 2020 college football season and so does Texas. If you still at a dead lock, use the two easily calculated measures below (PF) & (PA), which can often be misleading, but if you went through all of the above, you are left with no other options. (PF) = Points For - How many points total college football team scored throughout the season. (PA) = Points Allowed - How many points has college football team allowed throughout the season. 

CFB PLAYOFF 8 TEAM BRACKET
Over two years ago, we introduced our CFB playoff 8 team bracket and how it would look if it were to come to fruition. It is obvious this season that it could be easily justified when looking at all of the top 25 polls and where teams stand.  Let's first look at how the 1st round would take place in the power five conference championship. We also added a new formula in case we wind up with 3 teams from one conference ranked in the top eight, along with a group of five play in game. If this scenario presents itself, like is has in the 2020 CFB season. Also, given the fact that it is extremely difficult to judge the power rankings of each individual conference this season, due to many teams only playing in conference schedules this seems pretty legit. The teams below obviously could change throughout the remainder of the 2020 CFB season, but this is where they stand right now and many will be climbing the polls as we finish up the season. In our CFB 8-Team playoff formula, the winners of each power five conference championship get automatic bids into the 8 team CFB playoff formula. So we are just going to go with the highest ranked teams at this point to show the 8 team CFB playoff model. 
SEC Championship#1 Alabama vs #6 Florida 
BIG TEN Championship#3 Ohio State vs #9 Northwestern
ACC Championship#2 Notre Dame vs #5 Clemson
PAC 12 Champioship#11 USC vs #13 Oregon
BIG 12 Championship#14 Oklahoma vs #19 Iowa State

8 TEAM CFP RANKINGS FORMULA

In our 8 team CFP rankings formula, normally the remaining top 3 teams ranked in the the Top 25 would get a bid, but with Texas A&M being ranked higher than Florida, we would have three teams from the SEC in this 8 team playoff format. Below you will find the fully justified and fair solution to coming up with the 8 teams that would play for the National Championship. Depending on the outcome of the 1st round conference championship playoff game, the losers could inevitably fall out of the top 8, which makes room for another first round game between BYU and Cincinnati.   1. Alabama/Florida
2. Notre Dame/Clemson
3. Ohio State/Northwestern
4. Texas A&M/Florida
5. Clemson/Notre Dame
?6. USC, Oregon or Washington
7. Oklahoma, Iowa State or Texas 
8. BYU vs Cincinnati
8th Seen  - (G5 Playoff or 1st RD play-in game, read more below)
Of course, there are many other scenerios that could play out and Clemson could beat Notre Dame, Florida could upset Alabama and so on. Let's look at how this would pan out in the 8 team CFB playoff bracket below by taking the currently higher ranked Top 25 teams. 
#1 Alabama vs #8 BYU or Cincinnati 
#2 Notre Dame vs #7 Oklahoma
#3 Ohio State vs #6USC 
#4 Texas A&M vs #5 Clemson

COLLEGE FB PLAYOFFI actually even came up with an even more justified college FB playoff system, that will would have six team playoff between the group of five programs and include the highest ranked independent team. The winner of the group of five college FB playoff would be granted the 8th remaining spot in this model of the college FB playoff. Given the parity we have seen this season between power five teams and group of five teams, I believe this model would be the best of the inclusion of all deserving teams to battle it out for the right to play for the College Football National Championship. Let's take a glance of how the group of five playoff would commence at this point in the college football season and the teams that would be battling it out for the 8th seed in the above college football playoff 8 team bracket.
 
MAC Conference Championship Kent State/Buffalo vs Western Michigan
Sun Belt Championship #16 Coastal Carolina vs #24 Lousiana
Mountain West Championship Nevada vs San Jose St/Boise St
American Athletic Conference #7 Cincinnati vs #25 Tulsa/SMU 
Conference USA #17 Marshall/FAU vs UTSA
Independent 1st RD Playoff #8 BYU vs Liberty or Army

CFB GROUP OF 5 PLAYOFF
Taking the highest ranked teams or just by guessing at this point in the season, as teams in the MAC have only played three games thus far, here is how the group of five playoff seeding would look currently. The two highest ranked conference winners would receive 1st round byes. 1st RD byes - #1 Cincinnati & #2 BYU 

1st RD Match-Ups
#3 Coastal Carolina vs #6 Nevada/San Jose St or Boise St
#4 Marshall vs Kent St/Buffalo or Westnern Michigan
2nd RD Match-Ups (hypothetical) 
?#1 Cincinnati vs #4 Marshall (lowest ranked winner in 1st RD)
#2 BYU vs #3 Coastal Carolina
The winners of the semi-finals would go onto to play in the group of five championship and the right to the final seed in the 8 Team CFB Playoff. 

COLLEGE FOOTBALL TODAY

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