We’ve arrived at the first angry Tuesday of the college football season. That’s a win.
Or perhaps if you were a team on the outside looking in at the first Playoff Poll of 2025, it was a loss. That’s in the eye of the beholder. As we know, the eye of the beholder is ever changing when it comes to the selection committee.
Here’s what that first Playoff Poll looked like:
Here were my top takeaways from the first Playoff Poll:
In a field loaded with 2-loss teams, Notre Dame is oddly the highest at No. 10 … which matters a lot
Why does it matter that Notre Dame is the highest-ranked 2-loss team? A few reasons. One is that, in case you haven’t heard, the Irish lost a season-opening game at Miami. Currently, Miami is also a 2-loss team. Also currently, Miami is ranked No. 18 and well behind the Irish.
There’s no head-to-head advantage there like there is in other spots in the poll among teams with the same amount of losses (Alabama over Georgia, Georgia over Ole Miss, Texas over Oklahoma, Virginia over Louisville, etc.). Interesting. An 0-2 start isn’t being held against Notre Dame because it won 6 consecutive games, 5 of which were to Power Conference foes. That included a double-digit win against USC, who was part of that massive group of 12 2-loss teams.
The place where one could be skeptical of Notre Dame is that those 5 Power Conference teams have a combined conference record of 6-20. Clearly, though, the Irish are being rewarded for playing more consistently than some of those other 2-loss teams.
Remember that because the Irish could again steal an at-large berth if it wins out and sits idle during conference championship weekend. Starting off at No. 10 suggests that’s the obvious path for Notre Dame.
Texas and Oklahoma rounding out the top 12 was all they could’ve asked for
Here’s a wild thought. If the season ended today, Texas and Oklahoma would be the first 2 teams out of the Playoff (the ACC champ and highest-ranked Group of 5 champ would move into the top 12). Fortunately for Texas and Oklahoma, the season doesn’t end today. It still features multiple headliner matchups that they’ll likely need to win in order to keep their Playoff hopes alive.
It’s a slightly different path for Texas compared to Oklahoma because it has just the 1 conference loss, but the reality is the same. Getting to 10-2 means those teams are likely hosting home Playoff games. Starting off in the top 12 with those remaining headliners could present another interesting question, which Steve Sarkisian presented before the first Playoff Poll this week. Why couldn’t a 9-3 SEC team make the field this year?
The 2 most likely candidates would be Texas and Oklahoma, both of whom have multiple wins vs. teams that are in the Playoff Poll, and could get a third marquee win during the final month of the season. If Texas loses a thriller to Georgia but hands Texas A&M its first loss, are we sure the Longhorns would be toast? And what if Oklahoma hands Alabama its first SEC loss at Bryant-Denny Stadium in 6 years, but then it loses on a last-second play at Mizzou?
I’m not advocating for 3-loss teams yet, but seeing that first ranking should at least open the masses up to the notion that it could happen in Year 2 of the 12-team Playoff.
I have zero issue with Texas A&M at No. 3, and it’s weird to me that some are discounting the Notre Dame win
This is what I mean:
So to recap, A&M is benefitting from being unbeaten with a road win over a Notre Dame team that came in at No. 10 in the first poll … duh? I get that A&M’s SEC schedule has been extremely favorable. Nobody will deny that. But winning in South Bend, even with the benefit of that botched extra-point snap, carries more weight than that. Winning at LSU in that fashion still mattered, and it’ll matter if A&M ends Playoff dreams in road games against a pair of 2-loss teams in November.
On the flip side, Joey Galloway argued that A&M was underrated. That ignores Indiana ending the nation’s longest win streak, as well as the fact that the Hoosiers have had 1 game decided by single digits, and it was a road game a No. 20 Iowa. A&M had 1-score games against Auburn and Arkansas, who are a combined 1-10 in SEC play.
The notion that A&M is either overrated or underrated doesn’t make sense to me. The Aggies are No. 3 in the poll and No. 3 among the remaining unbeatens. Anything besides that would’ve been a surprise.
Group of 5 … where ya at?
Per Matt Baker of The Athletic, this was the first Playoff Poll that lacked a Group of 5 team. That’s significant in a couple ways.
For starters, it adds to the likelihood that the Group of 5 representation will come from the AAC winner. Whether that’s Memphis, South Florida, North Texas or Navy, that race features 4 teams who got AP Top 25 votes. Memphis was No. 22 in the AP Poll but unranked in the Playoff Poll. The latter is fine for now considering that there are still 2-3 of those AAC matchups left (including the conference championship). That’s tough for James Madison, who has the lone blemish at Louisville but a remaining schedule that doesn’t really have those résumé-boosting wins.
That could come into play with this increasingly crazy coaching carousel, especially as coaches like Rhett Lashlee, Matt Rhule and Curt Cignetti sign extensions. For coaches who are considered possible candidates like Jon Sumrall, Ryan Silverfield and Alex Golesh, as well as James Madison coach Bob Chesney, it figures to be tougher to poach a Playoff-bound coach than not. Then again, we don’t know what that’ll look like because this is an unprecedented carousel with the expanded Playoff.
Consider that another intriguing element to what figures to be a wild month ahead.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
