The first official College Football Playoff rankings are set to be released tonight on ESPN, and there is a consensus on the top four teams, although the order is somewhat up for debate. The interesting discussion typically begins from No. 5 through 10 and there are a pair of SEC teams in that mix.

ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit discussed where Florida and Texas A&M fit in that window on the latest episode of CFB Podcast with Herbie, Pollack & Negandhi. Herbstreit figured Cincinnati would be above BYU, but he also figured it would be interesting how the committee factors in the Pac-12 because he believed the committee doesn’t penalize a team for starting low like, for example, the AP Top 25 poll does.

“The other question is Florida lost to A&M at Kyle Field, they had COVID issues after that loss, and to be candid, they have been a completely different team since, I think, that was Week 3, and now they’ve played four straight games where I don’t know if anybody’s playing better than them,” Herbstreit said. “I know they got off to a slow start at sleepy Vandy, but other than that, they are taking names.”

So Herbstreit is interested to see how the committee handles Florida and Texas A&M, and if so, are they ranking them like other people and polls, giving the Aggies the nod because they won the head-to-head?

“It would make sense,” he said, “Or do you go with, man, Florida’s a different team today than they were when they lost against Texas A&M, so I don’t know. It’ll be interesting to see that discussion because A&M, it’s nothing they’ve done wrong, although they’ve been postponed because of COVID the last two weeks … they’ll finally play LSU this weekend, but they’re a little bit out of sight, out of mind, other than that win over Florida, that may be the only reason they stay ahead of the Gators in the first three weeks.”