Winners and Losers From the First CFP Rankings

As the college football season enters its final month of the regular season, the CFP committee unveiled its first set of rankings Tuesday night. Fans from every different team and conference tuned in with anxious excitement to find out where their team and conferences stood in the eyes of the powers that be.

Sure enough, and right on cue, as soon as the rankings were revealed, the debate began to rage on. Who is getting preferential treatment? Who got hosed?

What conferences are superior, and which ones are being disrespected? While much of this debate is subjective, there are some objective conclusions that one can make from this initial data set.

Let's examine the big winners and losers from Tuesday's reveal.

Notre Dame is a big winner

Notre Dame may have been the biggest winner of this initial set of rankings. Despite losing two of its three biggest games of the season, the Irish find themselves in the 10th playoff position.

This was literally the best case scenario for Notre Dame, landing as the top two-loss team ahead of multiple two-loss SEC teams and even a group of one-loss ACC teams, more on that later.

One of the biggest worries Irish fans had was that they could get boxed in behind Miami, which has an identical record but a head-to-head win over Notre Dame.

As it turns out, the committee sees Notre Dame as rising and Miami as falling off after two recent losses, the latest being a disappointing disaster against SMU, and this head-to-head loss did not hurt Notre Dame in the way many feared.

Notre Dame is in a great playoff position and could even maneuver into a hosting seed if it keeps winning and other teams ahead of it take some November losses.

The Big 12 is a big winner

Another big winner of the evening was the Big 12, which has three teams positioned in the top 13 spots in BYU, Texas Tech, and Utah. Is it possible that this conference gets more than one team into the CFP? This initial positioning suggests it may be realistic.

Iowa is a big winner

For the most part, the initial CFP lined up fairly closely with the latest AP Poll, with some minor positioning differences with one major exception. Iowa, which wasn't included in the AP top 25, appeared at number 20 in the CFP rankings.

Is this justified? We are about to find out, as Iowa has upcoming battles with both Oregon and USC.

Miami is a big loser

After looking like one of he top teams in the country early in the season, including a huge week one win over Notre Dame, Miami has lost games to Louisville and SMU, dropping the Hurricanes all the way down to the 18th spot.

This is a brutal drop that makes it unlikely for the Hurricanes to make the field even if they finish at 10-2.

The ACC is a big loser

The CFP committee made it very clear that it does not respect the ACC. The highest-ranked ACC team, Virginia, isn't even in the top 12, it's sitting at 14. This indicates to me that the ACC is likely to be a one-bid league this season.

With traditional powers like Clemson, FSU, Miami, and even Virginia Tech struggling, the ACC overall is a very weak conference at the moment.

Notre Dame haters are big losers

Due to its independence and history, Notre Dame is a lightning rod. Those who can't stand the Irish are enraged at their rank in the top ten and are letting it be known in every corner of the internet.

From "join a conference" to " Notre Dame doesn't play anyone" and every other trope one could imagine, they are all playing out on every corner of social media. Just the way I like it.