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By Rowan Fisher-Shotton
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The first College Football Playoff rankings of 2026 were released earlier this week, and they got plenty of attention. Miami (8-0) opened at No. 1, followed by Georgia, Utah, Indiana, and Alabama. Kentucky, Texas, UCLA, BYU, and Ole Miss rounded out the top 10, with Notre Dame and Ohio State at Nos. 11 and 12. Boise State is the only Group of Six team in the top 25.
The SEC leads all conferences with 10 teams, while the Big Ten has six. Several SEC teams have also moved up dramatically from the AP poll, most notably Alabama, which went from No. 9 to No. 5, and Texas, which climbed from No. 10 to No. 7. The committee releases new rankings each Tuesday, with the final 12-team bracket set for Dec. 6.
After the first CFP rankings dropped, Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt blasted the committee for its bias towards the SEC, asking how other schools from the Big Ten or ACC with equally as good, if not better, resumes could possibly get in at this point.
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"Every SEC team except for Georgia, who stayed flat, was bumped up from the AP poll. How does a team like Wake Forest or Iowa have a path now?" Klatt said. "We know Bama has a path, because they've got a free pass. Go to LSU, like, I don't know, play hard, and you're probably still in. Why? Because that Mississippi State team was undefeated when you beat em."
"The committee can do one of two things at this point. They can change course and give us something that is much better and more towards the center of the bell curve, and not an outlier. I think that would present some chaos because then teams would be like, 'Hey, you started us in this position, we played the game as if the game was associated with that value based on what you gave us, so why are you changing things on us in the middle of the race here in November?' So that presents problems. Or you could stay the course, which is a problem because now we have an outlier top 25 that we're just going to have to eat until we get the actual playoff.
"It matters where these teams start. It matters how this race is going to be driven, raced, won, lost. And every game now is going to have a value associated to it and with it, and that value is directly tied to that top 25," Klatt added.
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The SEC has Georgia (2), Alabama (5), Kentucky (6), Texas (7), Ole Miss (10), Tennessee (13), LSU (14), Missouri (18), South Carolina (21), and Florida (24). The Big Ten has Indiana (4), UCLA (8), Ohio State (12), Iowa (19), USC (20), and Oregon (23), while the ACC has just Miami (1) and Wake Forest (16), and the Big 12 has five teams: Utah (3), BYU (9), Texas Tech (15), Houston (17), and Arizona (22).
While it's clear the SEC has the upper hand with the initial rankings, they could shift quickly in the coming weeks, with many of the top SEC teams needing to face off against one another. Alabama plays LSU on Saturday, while Georgia visits Ole Miss and Kentucky heads to Tennessee, and Missouri hosts Texas, so several ranked teams will pick up losses this weekend.
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Whether it's actual bias is debatable. The SEC's strength of schedule numbers are high, and the committee has stressed it values strength and the full profile. But Alabama being eight spots ahead of Tennessee, which beat them head-to-head, is still puzzling, as is Notre Dame being at No. 11 with just one loss on the year. Texas Tech and Wake Forest also have just one loss apiece, but wouldn't make the playoffs if they started today.
The SEC is the deepest conference in the sport, so it would make sense for the committee to value those programs higher. As the top teams play each other in the coming weeks, the standings will show whether this first set of rankings holds up.
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