College Football Live - CFB Live- Playoff Picture: Where Does Your Team Stand Ahead of the First CFP Rankings?

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

Join our crew Zubin Mehenti, Sam Acho, Tom Luginbill and Heather Dinich as they put themselves in the shoes of the CFP Committee prior to the first rankings tonight... If the CFB Season ended today, who would be in? Who would be out? Which teams fell out this weekend, and which are still lurking on the bubble? The coaching carousel continues to turn at top speed; get the latest updates on head coaching openings from CFB insider Pete Thamel, as well as injury updates and other top stories! All this and more on College Football Live! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Out of the tunnel here on college football live. Hours away from the first college football playoff rankings for the 2025 season. Our experts on what they most want to see and are most interested in seeing. It was a rough week to be a road team that was ranked for one conference in particular. How might these bad results impact what the CFP says tonight? We'll dig in. And in the last 15 years, Auburn's won a national title and played for another. But now that the job is open again, how good is it today?

We'll discuss that more. college football live. And we welcome you inside with Tom Luganbill Sam Macho and Heather Dinnich, who's been covering the committee since its inception back in 2014. I'm Zubin Mahenti. Six hours from now where Heather and I are sitting, the official rankings will be released on ESPN, but it won't be long enough until Heather's camped out at the Gaylord Texan and Great Vine taking track of the 12 men and women, former head coaches, former

and current administrators, media members, former players that will help decide who gets into the playoff. Just a quick reminder on the newish format. The 12-team college football playoff is back in 2025 with a new and improved seating procedure. Again this year, the playoff will feature the five highest-ranked conference champions plus the next seven highest-ranking teams, as determined by the CFP selection committee. Now, new this year, the 12-team bracket will be seated solely on the selection committee's final rankings. With the four highest-ranked teams, whether they're conference champions or not, seated one through four, and receiving first round buys. The eight teams, seated five through 12, will play in the first round starting on

December 19th, with the team seated five through eight hosting home games. From there, the playoff will play out as dictated by the bracket, with no receding between rounds. The quarters and semis will be played at the traditional New Year's six bowl game locations, followed by the National Championship in Miami, where the college football playoff champion will be crowned January 19th, only on ESPN. So there you have the newish format. And before Mack Rhodes, the athletic director and vice chancellor of athletics at Baylor is in the hot seat tonight, answering the questions from the guys and Heather. Let's put the guys in Heather on the hot seat first.

The biggest thing you're looking forward to seeing tonight that kind of catches your eye is going to be what? Nine through 12-ish range. What do they do with that jumbled mess after Georgia Tech loss, Vanderbilt loss, Miami loss? How high can Notre Dame climb? how far does Miami fall? Do they care about the head-to-head? The fact that those teams played? And where are Oklahoma and Texas?

Because they also have a head-to-head results. So I'm very curious how they put that big picture piece of the puzzle together. Okay, Tom, to you. Yeah, I'm also very interested to see what they end up doing with Virginia. When you consider Virginia's schedule was the softest schedule in the ACC. They have a loss to NC State, which was considered an out-of-conference loss from a schedule. perspective. And then as you as you look down the road in the month of November, everybody's going to get caught up in this one set of the initial rankings. But look at the football that's got

to be played, particularly in the SEC down the stretch. I think this thing could look so vastly different four weeks from now than it does right now. But I agree with Heather. The nine through 12, what a muddy mess. Well, y'all talking about nine through 12 and one and two. I'm looking What happens at 13 to 25? Why do I say that? Because all of a sudden, you're going to have teams that have ranked wins now on this current AP poll that won't have ranked wins when it comes to the CFP Selection Committee's poll.

And so a team like Washington right now that's ranked 24, are they going to be in the top 25? That might be one less ranked win for a team like Ohio State. So I want to see what happens after the first 12, the top 12. Maybe a team like James Madison is going to be in the top 25. Now you're talking about some of these group of five conference champions, the five highest rated conference champions. So I want to see what happens outside the top 12. Let me tell you something.

As somebody who sits there on Saturday night, Sunday morning, and does the whole top 25, you find yourself arguing about Iowa and Pitt and a three lost Tennessee, right? I mean, he's absolutely right. People don't understand how difficult it gets from 13 to 25. Let me ask you this here. Fellas hang tight for this. I want your perspective as well. You said a couple of weeks ago, it wouldn't be out of the norm to maybe see a team like Texas A&M or Indiana that somebody really deserves to be in the number one spot, even if the poll doesn't say that.

You know these men and women and what they're looking at in the data as well as anybody having been here on the ground floor. Should we be surprised in any way if somebody usurps Ohio State or does somebody in your mind have a real consideration to be in the top spot besides the Buckeyes? I would be surprised if it wasn't Ohio State. And I say that because I think right now they have the best combination of eye tests and resume. This is what the selection committee is looking for. Ohio State is in the top six in offensive and defensive efficiency. They've got a great resume. But Texas A&M is number one in ESPN's strength of record metric.

But that's not what it's all about. The committee considers a lot of other things. Like when you look at Alabama, they have four straight wins against ranked opponents, all of which could be CFP top 25 opponents. Two of them were on the road. They consider all of those details. Fair enough. So Ohio State, Heather thinks could be there, will be there. But the case for other schools is there.

Sam, I know you've been particularly bullish here on Indiana. I know you guys probably both agree on Ohio State being in the top spot. Sam, let's begin with you. What is the line of separation between, let's say, Ohio State at one and Indiana? anybody that comes beneath them. How wide or narrow is that gap? Oh, it's extremely narrow. I love Heather's point about Indiana and how, yes, Ohio State does have a better,

better metrics, but Indiana has a better win. Indiana has a 10-point win over the currently number six ranked team in Oregon. Now, that might change. Oregon might be ranked a little bit lower in the CFP's eyes, but Ohio State's best win is currently against, I think, number 13 ranked Texas. And so one of the arguments that can be made for Indiana is not only their better win, their double-digit win versus a top-10 team that currently Ohio State doesn't have in their resume.

But also, you look at the head-to-head of a team like Illinois, Indiana beat Illinois by, was it, 50 points, and Ohio State beat Illinois by about 18. And so those are the things that I'm thinking about are the head-to-head matchups, excuse me, the mutual matchups, right, the like opponents. And then also, Indiana does have a better win. Now, last thing I'll just caveat it with is Washington is now ranked 24. Ohio State has that on their resume. So that is also a reason that Ohio State could be favored a little bit more.

Well, and Sam, look at the flip side of that. What you just referenced with Washington, how about Oregon and the Penn State game? When you look at when that game was played and where Penn State was in the national scope of college football, does the committee look at that for what it was in the moment, or do they look at it now as Penn State looks like shatterglass on the highway? That's going to be very interesting because you can't sit here and say, well, Oregon went into that game and didn't really get overly excited about it because they figured in five weeks Penn State was going to be done.

That's not how this works. So you have to give some credence to when the game was played. And you look at Texas A&M, they're another team that still has Missouri and Texas left on the schedule. They've only beaten two teams with winning records to this point. And finally, I wouldn't be surprised because I think Texas A&M, Alabama, Indiana, and Ohio State have separated themselves. If those four were to go on and play each other in the Big Ten in the SEC Championship,

respectively, I would not be surprised, regardless of the outcome, as long as there wasn't a blowout, if those four teams weren't still the top four seeds in the college football playoff. I just want to make two points here. One with the common opponents. The selection committee does consider common opponents without incentivizing margin of victory. So, yes, they're looking for Indiana to establish themselves as the better team. But when Indiana is beating teams like they beat Illinois, once you get past 24, 25 points, you made your point.

The selection committee isn't overly impressed by continuing to pile up the points. That's the first thing. The second thing, to Louvre's point real quick, about Penn State and the Oregon game, they will consider, to my understanding, the fact that James Franken was on the sideline, that was a hostile environment, that was not a team that had yet come undone the way we saw after the that. However, when you're talking about that Penn State win, it's not an elite win, right? It's not beating Georgia. Right. The old saying used to be it's who you lose to, how you lose to, but what happens when that team loses all their juice? And that's something that Tom and Heather

touched on. Still to come here on College Football Live. Who's right back in this thing that we thought maybe was living on a razor's edge? And on the planes, they'll be looking for another head coach, it's the fourth, fourth head coach in the SEC to go this season. The best insider in the sport here next. College Football Live is brought to you by Liberty Mutual Insurance. Only pay for what you need. Alex football playoff top 25. We got brackets to talk about a lot of movement.

The top 25 ranking for Ville and 12 team CFP projection. Tonight on ESPN. Rees and the gang will be right here in this studio to talk about it. We get your appetite with a little bit of a primer. We mentioned big, big time wins and losses over the weekend that can affect the CFP picture. Tennessee falling to Oklahoma. That's a three-loss ball's off it now. But Oklahoma certainly looks like they might be in better shape.

More on that in just a second. They did vault up seven spots in the Associated Press Bowl. Texas also vaulted up seven spots in the Associated Press Poll, handing Vandy, A defeat kind of feels like over the last couple of weeks, Texas has come back to life on offense. As good as it was for those two members of the SEC for the ACC, it was a really tough weekend. Tech undefeated this deep into a season for the first time since 1966 goes down under the lights at Carter Finley and Miami with again their late season swooned this time losing to SMU in Dallas in a thrilling game in overtime. Just take a look at this from what I just mentioned. The two SEC teams I mentioned saw their chances go up.

The two ACC teams I mentioned here have seen their chances plummet. So let's talk a little bit about this with respect to the ACC because that seems like the league that took a lot of carnage this weekend. Let's start with you. Based upon the numbers on what you just saw on the screen and the results from the weekend, one thing about the ACC in your mind is pretty darn clear. It looks like a one-bid league right now. And it looks like the ACC champion, which would lock up a speed.

because the runner-up, I think, is going to have a really difficult time with two losses, compensating for that with the rest of their schedule, because there just aren't any statement wins on there. And the reality of the situation is, even as an undefeated team, there were questions about the validity of Georgia Tech. And I promise you that within that selection committee meeting room this week, they talked about the officiating call that helped them beat Wake Forest. I guarantee that was part of the conversation. I will say this, though, to the point of maybe a one-bit ACC team, Georgia Tech, they just lost NC State hostile environment. Georgia Tech has a chance to play Pitt, which should be ranked. I think Pitt may be ranked in this first ranking, but they also have a chance to play Georgia at the end of the season.

And so let's say for some reason, Georgia Tech ends up losing in an ACC championship game. Well, they went over Georgia the week before could help bolster their case as being a team that might still make the cost football. playoff even if they don't win their conference. Yeah, and Sam, I agree with Heather here because, you know, you go back a week ago and it looked like there could possibly be three ACC teams. In the matter of one weekend, it's now gone down to one. The question is, who are going to be the two teams in the ACC championship game? Because you still got Georgia Tech out there, Louisville out there.

Duke is a problem and it has to play Virginia. Virginia, Georgia Tech, and Miami do not play each other. And then you just reference Pitt, who plays Georgia. Georgia Tech and Miami. So this is going to be really interesting to see how this all unfolds, because those six teams right there that you see on your screen are so competitively balanced. And those teams have also won a lot of one possession games with quality quarterback play. So I think we are far from the end of chaos in the ACC.

The question is going to be, who are the two teams in the championship game? Yeah, I want to quickly mention you saw on your screen that Virginia has one loss, but just keep in mind as a caveat, this is something Heather's been telling us the whole time, that one loss was to NC State, but because the size of the ACC and all these leagues is morphed, that's technically a non-conference game. It's a little jarring when you see it. They've got the one loss, but technically they are undefeated in conference play, even though they lost to a league opponent.

It's just a qualifier to know. It's time for our Capital One rewarding performance. And this is really interesting here because we're going to spotlight a team that I don't think is getting a ton of attention here, despite how well they have played of late. And that is what Notre Dame has been able to do. Six straight wins after starting 0 and 2. Now, it is worth mentioning that the two teams that Notre Dame lost to, both of them could end up making the college football playoff.

That is something that's there. But we do find ourselves, Heather, in a situation where, of course, opening weekend, thrilling game between Notre Dame and Miami, which Miami won by three at the end. But both teams finished with two losses, and Miami, currently does have the head-to-head over Notre Dame. In pro sports, it would be a wrap. But these are 12 men and women. This is metrics. This is feelings. How do they see something like that? Two losses apiece, but one with the tie break over the other. So they're going to look at it all

season long, the way they looked at it this week, Zubin, which is the head-to-head is a tiebreaker. It's one of several in the room, but it's not the end-all be-all. Every one of those 12 committee members has an iPad. They've got game film, coaches cutups. Without the broadcast, they fly through these games. What are they going to see? They're going to see Notre Dame playing defense. Notre Dame strong running game with Jeremiah Love. They're going to see Miami self-inflicted wounds and a bad loss. It's better to lose early than to lose eight late and to have good losses. So there is a possibility that the committee could reward Notre Dame in spite of that head to head. It is fascinating to see how that is going to play itself out. It's certainly something to keep an

on tonight. One team I know is not thinking about the playoff for sure is the Auburn Tiger. This has been an absolutely crazy year as you know with regards to coaching changes but we've got our fourth SEC coaching change. LSU Florida Arkansas now Auburn

Coach Freeze look he was 6 and 15 in SEC games his critics will tell you not good enough his supporters will tell you look many of those games are close but they just couldn't get over the hump he could just never find the right quarterback which seems pretty obvious. Take a look at all these openings, we are now up to over $182 million in buyout money.

Let's bring in college sports best insider Pete Thamble. Pete, I mentioned at the top of the show, Auburn has won a national title and played for one here in the last 15 years. But that doesn't really matter because I want to ask you what this job is today and how it's viewed in the coaching and AD fraternity and community. Well, Zubin, as John Cohen launches this search for Auburn, it's at an interesting place. One thing Auburn has for certain is unmatched passion. It's fan base, its home environment. They are all in at Auburn at all times. And they also have a strong financial war chest. The issues with Hugh Freeze were not personnel based, you know, one to 85 on the roster. Auburn has deep resources and there is such a deep care for football in that community. Within that athletic department, they are not going to be outspent in the SEC. So on paper, when you start to dig into the Auburn job, the passion, the home environment, and the resources that they will have at their disposal are going to be giant positives. Now, look, there's a lot more traffic in front of Auburn and the SEC than there used to be.

The inclusion of Oklahoma and Texas in the league. Places like Ole Miss have wisely moved and outflanked them in the standings right now. So Auburn finds itself in an interesting place with Florida open, with Arkansas open, obviously with LSU open. It will be an interesting time for Auburn to find the next leader who can lead them back to that national title game. And you mentioned Ole Miss. I'll just quickly mention, of course, there was a dalliance with Lane Kiffin and Auburn. A couple of years ago, we'll see if anything bears fruit moving forward.

That's another story for another day. Big injury updates, you got a set. Let's start with a really big one here in the backfield. Yeah, so obviously Michigan, as it prepares for a two-game road trip here, Zubin, they go to Northwestern, they go to Maryland. They are not expected to have tailback Justice Hayans. he's dealing with a foot injury. Sharon Moore, as he often is with injuries. It was a little bit cagey about the timeline for him to come back,

but it was jarring to see him on a scooter last week at Purdue, and that Michigan offense is not the same without him. As for Louisville, they're waiting their fate tonight from the playoff committee. Isaac Brown, the second leading rusher, and the ACC is out for a while, according to Jeff Brom. This is a big blow to Louisville's offense. He's been one of their big engines. He was amid his third straight 100-yard game when this leg injury came,

and it remains to be seen whether he'll be back at any juncture this season. As for the big game where we'll be for college game day on Saturday, some good news for number 8, BYU as they go to number 9 Texas Tech, leading rusher LJ Martin, who's both the Cougars and the Big 12's leading rusher, I've been told by sources is expected to play. He left that Iowa State game early with a shoulder injury, got a couple opinions on it, and I've been told he looked good in practice yesterday,

and the expectation among the Cougars is that Martin will be back for the game in Lubbock this weekend. That's huge because BYU's had some injuries on the defensive side of the ball, and now they're getting a little bit healthier on offense. Pete, thank you very much. You, of course, mentioned that the Game Day gang is going to be in Lubbock for one of the biggest games Texas Tech has ever played top 10 showdown with the Couges in the house. On the way, who are we not talking about that by this time next week we might? teams that are lurking right there on the periphery of making the playoff.

That'll be on the tip of everyone's tongue. Next week, you'll find that out this week. Next. We're back on college football live. Get ready for this big triple header on your local ABC station. We talked about the stakes in Lubbock, A&M, highest national ranking in over 30 years, and then LSU off the tumultuous by week and the firing of head coach Brian Kelly it'll ease back in at Alabama if there is such a thing.

Okay, let's get to you here. Fido, we got plenty of time to get to your thoughts on tomorrow's championship drive. Okay, we've got an hour tomorrow. Let it go. All right. On your quick thoughts on the team that's lurking here, Arizona State, a year ago at this time,

nobody talking about them. Whoa, they're in the playoff. Whoa, they almost beat Texas. Who is that team right now? It'd be great if you said like the Georgia Bull dogs to match this up, but I don't think you're going to go there. No, I'm going to go with USC. Because when you look at USC's two losses to Illinois and Notre Dame, both on the road by a combined 12 points,

and USC has a chance to go on the road and beat Oregon. If they do that, Zubin, they can flip the script with the doc. Just like that. Just like that. They also have a win against Michigan, which is currently their best wins. So USC has to continue to play really good football to do that right now. ESPN's FBI says that's the only game they're not supposed to win in the remaining schedule. But if they do, this conversation could change.

Well, another conversation changer is the pit panthers. No, not the Bulldogs, no not Doug, the dog. Shout out to Doug. But the pit panthers. Why? Because they've won five straight games ever since they made a quarterback change to true freshman Mason Highshould. Now, here's the issue. They have a byweek right now.

And they have one of the toughest remaining schedules. in all of college football. So it's almost like a good news and a bad news. The good news is Pitt might very well be ranked come tonight at 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. Eastern. But the problem is they got to play Notre Dame at Georgia Tech and Miami. So they will have to not only earn their ranking, but also earn their opportunity to get either in the college football playoff or in an ACC championship game. Yeah, Sam, listen, I tell you, I think there's two teams for me.

Number one is Utah. and if you can keep Devin Dampier upright, they got a schedule that is really favorable, should be favored in all of the remaining games, and I think that they could potentially end up being a thorn in somebody's side. And then, you know, there's that schedule I just referenced. And then how about Texas, guys, how about Texas? Georgia and A&M remain on the schedule,

and all of a sudden, Arch Manning, everybody who's so quick to criticize them now a sudden, Arch Manning is playing lights out. So I think the Longhorns are going to be interested. Rankings tonight, 8 Eastern, over on ESPN. Be there, Heather on SportsCenter on ESPN in 10 minutes for more playoff chatter. Get out of here. We'll see you tomorrow.