College football rankings: Every team in the College Football Playoff sorted by FPI

Friday night commences the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff. No. 7 Notre Dame will host in-state foe No. 10 Indiana in the inaugural first-round game. The winner between the Fighting Irish and the Hoosiers will face SEC champion Georgia on New Year's Day in the Sugar Bowl. While the Selection Committee got the right 12 teams into the playoff, what if the seeding was a bit different?

What people have to remember is the five highest-ranked conference champions all get in, plus the next seven best teams in college football. The four highest-ranked conference champions get a first-round bye into the neutral-site quarterfinals. Surely, this will massively impact how the playoff ultimately shakes out this year. What if we let ESPN's Football Power Index be the guiding light for us?

For those who need a refresher, here are the 12 teams who made the playoff, seeded accordingly.

1. Oregon Ducks: (13-0) (Big Ten champion)
2. Georgia Bulldogs: (11-2) (SEC champion)
3. Boise State Broncos: (12-1) (Mountain West/Group of Five champion)
4. Arizona State Sun Devils: (11-2) (Big 12 champion)
5. Texas Longhorns: (11-2) (SEC runner-up)
6. Penn State Nittany Lions: (11-2) (Big Ten runner-up)
7. Notre Dame Fighting Irish: (11-1) (National independent at-large)
8. Ohio State Buckeyes: (10-2) (Big Ten at-large)
9. Tennessee Volunteers: (10-2) (SEC at-large)
10. Indiana Hoosiers: (11-1) (Big Ten at-large)
11. SMU Mustangs: (11-2) (ACC runner-up)
12. Clemson Tigers: (10-3) (ACC champion)

If we were to reseed the 12 teams in the playoff, based strictly on FPI, this would be the new bracket.

1. Texas Longhorns (26.1) (No. 1)
2. Notre Dame Fighting Irish (25.3) (No. 2)
3. Ohio State Buckeyes (24.8) (No. 3)
4. Georgia Bulldogs (22.1) (No. 5)
5. Oregon Ducks (21.1) (No. 6)
6. Tennessee Volunteers (20.8) (No. 7)
7. Penn State Nittany Lions (20.0) (No. 9)
8. Indiana Hoosiers (18.7) (No. 10)
9. SMU Mustangs (16.4) (No. 13)
10. Clemson Tigers (14.7) (No. 15)
11. Arizona State Sun Devils (11.8) (No. 22)
12. Boise State Broncos (11.1) (No. 25)

As you can see, a third of the playoff field are not among the 12 best teams in the country, according to FPI. In that case, teams like SMU, Clemson, Arizona State and Boise State would be bid stealing from programs like Alabama (24.0, No. 4), Ole Miss (20. 6, No. 8), Miami (17.3, No. 11) and Louisville (16.5, No. 12). Keep in mind those are all multi-loss teams who did not play for their conference title.

Now that we have the 12-team College Football Playoff field reseeded, let's dive into it, shall we?

College Football Playoff rankings reseeded, based strictly on ESPN's FPI

Upon inspection of the initial hypothetical reseeding, it kind of feels like the March Madness college basketball bracket to me. Yes, you still have your automatic qualifier spots for winning a conference championship, but they are not being shoe-horned into a higher seeding than they deserve. To me, that is something I can somewhat get behind. However, FPI still grossly overlooks a handful of things.

My biggest complaint with the reseeding it is does not account for head-to-head wins as much. I mean, Georgia beat Texas ... twice. That should matter for something. Oregon beat Ohio State, Clemson beat SMU and so on. FPI would have had a four-loss Louisville team over three conference champions, and two teams who had way better seasons than the Cardinals inside of their own league!

Overall, while going off FPI with AQ conference tie-ins does give us a slightly more balanced playoff bracket, winning your league should matter. Teams like Georgia and Oregon are punished over teams like Texas, who did not win the SEC, Ohio State, who did not even play in the Big Ten title bout, and Notre Dame, who does not even play in a conference. FPI would also have had Alabama in over SMU.

An FPI bracket is interesting, but it is artificially inflating teams like Notre Dame, Ohio State and Texas.