Winners and losers from the first 2022 College Football Playoff rankings

The first College Football Playoff rankings for 2022 were released on Tuesday and the committee drew some chaotic lines for the CFP rankings. 

On Tuesday night, the first College Football Playoff rankings were revealed by the selection committee and they undoubtedly offered a bevy of shocks for college football fans.

For starters, it was the Tennessee Volunteers who came in as the No. 1-ranked team in the first CFP rankings, but even more shocking was that the committee had Ohio State over Georgia at No. 2 and 3, respectively. And then rounding out the Top 4 was Clemson, chosen over Michigan, a team that came in at No. 5.

Amidst all of the surprise, though, let’s dive through the CFP rankings and figure out who the big winners and losers are from the first rankings.

College Football Playoff Rankings: Winners and losers from Week 10 CFP rankings

Winner: Tennessee Volunteers (No. 1)

There was chatter prior to Tuesday that the Vols might end up with the No. 1 spot in the first College Football Playoff rankings as Josh Heupel’s team has the best win in the country this season with the takedown of Alabama and also completely blasted another then-ranked team in Kentucky. And that was indeed the way the selection committee saw things as well.

Tennessee is No. 1 in the rankings and now controls its own destiny. More importantly, though, there is an outside shot that they could still lose to No. 3-ranked Georgia in Week 10 and still make it into the Playoff because of their current position. For a team that began the year unranked, there’s no bigger win than this one.

Loser: Georgia Bulldogs (No. 3)

Speaking of those third-ranked Bulldogs, Georgia has been the top-ranked team in the AP Top 25 for several weeks now and the selection committee not only didn’t put Kirby Smart’s team in the top spot, but they jumped Ohio State ahead of them as well.

The argument for why Georgia is where it is isn’t difficult to decipher. They flirted with disaster against Missouri and weren’t all that impressive against Kent State either. More importantly, their lone high-quality win was the 49-3 rout against Oregon to begin the year. And let’s be clear, that win should mean a lot with the Ducks sitting at No. 8 in the first CFP rankings.

What’s scary for the Dawgs, though, is that this ranking really gives them little room for error. If they were to lose in Athens to Tennessee, there are no more quality opponents left on the schedule and they would surely miss the SEC Championship game, almost surely eventually leaving them out of the Playoff.

Loser: TCU Horned Frogs (No. 7)

Hypnotoad needs to get in front of the committee and plead its case.

TCU is frankly being disrespected by the committee with this ranking. Yes, they’ve played with fire on a number of occasions, but here they are still at 8-0 on the season with two wins over teams ranked inside of the Top 20 of the first CFP rankings. That’s not something that should be looked over, yet the Horned Frogs are the only undefeated team to have a one-loss team (Alabama) ranked ahead of them.

Sonny Dykes’ team will have opportunities to move up with looming SEC matchups and Ohio State-Michigan ahead on the schedule this season and with matchups against Texas and Baylor to boost their resumé as well. But the ultimate truth is that they deserve to be higher than No. 7 to begin these proceedings.

Winner: LSU Tigers (No. 10)

This one was one of the biggest shocks of Tuesday night’s reveal. LSU climbed to No. 15 in the latest AP Top 25 and the Tigers have been playing much better football as of late, including a signature win over Ole Miss in their last game. But for a two-loss team to be ranked inside the Top 10 of the CFP rankings while having been blown out by Tennessee is truly a wild sight to behold and will surely rile up the SEC-bias crowd.

But what this ranking actually does is give LSU an outside shot at making the College Football Playoff despite sitting at 6-2. If the Tigers were able to knock off Alabama in Week 10, they would then be in the driver’s seat to win the SEC West. Parlay that into winning the SEC Championship Game, and jumping from No. 10 to inside the Top 4 would not be all that outlandish.

Loser: Michigan Wolverines (No. 5)

I really don’t want to hear it from the “non-conference” schedule criers out there. There’s no denying that Michigan faced a group of non-con teams that would be insulting to toilet paper to call Charmin-soft. But the committee chose to move Clemson ahead of the Wolverines despite their non-conference schedule including Furman, Georgia Tech and Louisiana Tech — not exactly a murderer’s row.

Michigan has proven its legitimacy more recently in Big Ten play with a dominant win over Penn State — more so than even Ohio State’s victory over the Nittany Lions — and not really sweating outside of the win over Maryland. Clemson, meanwhile, has been sweating often against their best opponents, needing comebacks to beat Syracuse and Wake Forest. Maybe they’re close in the committee’s eyes, but I don’t see how it’s definitive that the Tigers are superior to the Wolverines.

Winner: Texas Longhorns (No. 24)

In all honesty, this simply comes down to the fact that there is one three-loss team that made the College Football Playoff rankings and that’s Texas. The reasoning is easy to spot as their loss to Texas Tech came with Quinn Ewers out and their other losses came against teams ranked inside the Top 20.

But even then, Texas is getting a lot of love and benefit of the doubt to be in this position for the first CFP rankings.

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