History was made Tuesday when the College Football Playoff selection committee revealed its first Top 25 rankings, the beginning of a new era in determining the game’s national champion through a four-team tournament format.

And don’t worry SEC fans. Even if your team doesn’t win the league championship in Atlanta, there’s a good chance they’ll be an at-large Playoff selection.

The committee put a heavy emphasis on strength of schedule in their initial poll, evidenced by the three of the top four slots taken by SEC teams. Another SEC contender, Alabama, is sixth:

  1. Mississippi State
  2. Florida State
  3. Auburn
  4. Ole Miss
  5. Oregon
  6. Alabama

Mississippi State and Florida State, the nation’s only remaining unbeatens from Power 5 conferences, secured the top two spots in the rankings ahead of 18 one-loss teams who were placed in what the committee deemed as descending order beginning with Auburn at No. 3.

The committee’s picks reveal that the probability of multiple SEC teams making the final four-team Playoff is high.

“We’re not even to Halloween yet, so rather than start panicking, let’s see how many of these four in early December, are still on the bracket,” said ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit. “Before anybody gets up in arms about an Oct. 28 first standings from the committee, let your team keep playing. If they’re as good as you think are, they’ll be in a nice position to get in that top four and be honored for it.”

The selection committee’s line of thinking:

  • Strength of schedule and head to head results, not conference affiliation, played a major role
  • Oregon ahead of Alabama at No. 5 means committee members looked at relevant factors (OL injuries)
  • Ohio State’s lack of a strong schedule in the Big Ten damaged the overall opinion of the Buckeyes
  • TCU, at No. 7, is in great spot thanks to multiple wins over ranked teams

CFP chairman Jeff Long on head to head matchups to ESPN’s Rece Davis: “As you would expect, there’s a lot of discussion (about head to head). You have to remember that’s only one of the criteria we’re using. We’re also looking at how those teams played against the other teams on the schedule. Head to head’s important, but it’s not the only factor, obviously.”

After nine weeks of individual assessment in hopes of objectively ranking the nation’s elite, group deliberation began Monday in Grapevine, Texas at the Gaylord Texan resort, where teams were broken down by the 12-member committee and votes were cast for Tuesday’s much-anticipated, nationally-televised reveal.

CFP executive director Bill Hancock told ESPN’s Heather Dinich, one of the anchors of the network’s wall-to-wall Playoff coverage, the meeting was tense and all allegiances were left outside the door.

From ESPN:

“This is a truly historic day in college football,” Hancock said. “Twenty years from now we will all look back and say we were here on the first meeting of the selection committee. When we took the first vote today, we looked at each other and said we have just taken the first vote in the history of the college football playoff. It was really, really a cool thing.”