The College Football Playoff selection committee released its first official rankings of the 2025-26 season on Tuesday night, and there were a handful of teams that did not appreciate how lowly they were placed.
BREAKING: Initial College Football Playoff Rankings🚨https://t.co/nSJbXtt30A pic.twitter.com/RsQCtcadOG
— On3 (@On3sports) November 5, 2025
Two teams included in the Associated Press Top 25 were surprisingly omitted completely from the selection committee's list. Those decisions are going to have a huge impact on how the committee views them later in the season — that is, if they're still in playoff contention.
Iowa (No. 20) and Pittsburgh (No. 24) saw themselves generously re-inserted into their respective conference title races as well as handed a brand new opportunity to potentially sneak in as an at-large bid for the 12-team bracket. There's still a lot of football left to be played, but it breathed new life into those programs and acted as a gut punch to the two that were excluded entirely.
3 teams who saw their CFP hopes take a huge hit after first rankings reveal
No. 25 Tennessee Volunteers (6-3)
Three losses typically eliminates any team from the CFP, but with the SEC displaying a significant amount of parity compared to previous seasons, some teams like Tennessee saw a window to point to their resume as a reason to be included as the potential last team in.
However, starting the crucial home stretch of the season on the fringe of the first rankings suggests the committee has little to no confidence in the Volunteers to actually be serious dark horse threats in the SEC. One more loss will formally eliminate them and even running the table would do little to impress, because Tennessee's final opponents are New Mexico State (yawn), Florida (unimpressive) and No. 16 Vanderbilt (likely out of the race too). The highest we could see the Volunteers climb to is somewhere around No. 15, which would leave them on the outside looking in just one year removed from participating in the inaugural 12-team bracket.
Cincinnati Bearcats (7-2)
The third-place team in the Big 12 currently is outside the committee's rankings. That's a near death knell for the Bearcats and their hopes to return to the CFP for the first time since 2021-22. Cincinnati's remaining schedule is no cake walk either (Arizona, No. 8 BYU and TCU), leaving a run to the Big 12 Championship Game its likely only path into the 12-team bracket. But that would require the committee boosting the program double-digit spots over the course of just a few weeks.
Cincinnati has one ranked win on its resume (No. 14 Iowa State), but that hasn't impressed the committee to date. Taking down BYU may be its only ticket back into the race and that's a tall ask with how hot the Cougars have been. This seems to be a sad case of "we won a lot of games, but just not enough important ones to matter."
Memphis (8-1)
The Group of Five has to have a representative in the 12-team bracket, but at the moment the committee is not yet ready to give an early endorsement of who that may be. The Memphis Tigers are ranked No. 22 in the AP poll but actually trail unranked Navy in the American Athletic Conference standings. With other non-power conference teams like James Madison, North Texas and South Florida waiting in the wings, the committee may be waiting one more week to back a contender.
This doesn't necessarily kill Memphis' chances of making the CFP bracket, but not being in the initial rankings means it has zero room for error going forward. A loss in Week 11 surely eliminates the program and opens the door for a myriad of other competitors.