Ohio State tops CFP list; Indiana, Texas A&M, Alabama next - ESPN

Ohio State is the No. 1 team in the first rankings released Tuesday by the College Football Playoff selection committee, topping fellow unbeatens Indiana at No. 2 and Texas A&M at No. 3.

Three SEC teams follow the Aggies, with Alabama at No. 4, Georgia at No. 5 and Ole Miss at No. 6.

BYU, Texas Tech, Oregon and Notre Dame round out the top 10. The top ACC team is Virginia at No. 14. Every team in the top 25 came from a Power 4 conference, so the committee designated Memphis as the top team from the Group of 5.

The five highest-ranked conference champions will make the 12-team field, but there is a tweak to the format this year as the committee is using a straight seeding model. The top four teams in the final ranking, regardless of conference championship, will receive a first-round bye.

If the playoff were today, the first-round games would be: Memphis at Georgia; Virginia at Ole Miss; Notre Dame at BYU; and Oregon at Texas Tech.

«We had robust discussion about the three of them,» CFP committee chair Mack Rhoades, the athletic director at Baylor, said on ESPN's rankings release show Tuesday night regarding the Buckeyes, Hoosiers and Aggies at the top of the board. «Obviously, all three are undefeated.… We really felt like that Ohio State and Indiana were close. When you look at the statistical data, both offensively and defensively, these are two teams that are both in the top five offensively and in the top five defensively, both with really good wins.

»But again, when we looked at tape, and we looked at metrics, we felt that Ohio State was a little bit better up front, on the offensive line. And we thought they were better defensively."

The SEC led the way with nine teams ranked in the top 25, while the Big Ten had