It’s a new era for the College Football Playoff, with the field growing from four to 12 this season. That means three times as many programs will gain entry, but, beginning with Tuesday’s initial playoff rankings, there’s three times as much room for outrage, too.

Under the old rules, there was a simple line of demarcation that separated the elated from the angry: Who’s in?

Now, there are so many more reasons for nitpicking the committee’s decisions, from first-round byes to hosting a home game to whether your supposedly meaningful conference has been eclipsed by teams from the Group of 5.

And if the first rankings are any indication, it’s going to be a fun year for fury. There’s little logic to be taken from the initial top 25 beyond the committee’s clear love for the Big Ten. Penn State and Indiana make the top eight despite having only one win combined over an ESPN FPI top-40 team (Penn State over Iowa). That Ohio State checks in at No. 2 ahead of Georgia is the most inexplicable decision involving Georgia since Charlie Daniels suggested the devil lost that fiddle contest. Oregon is a reasonable No. 1, but the Ducks still came within a breath of losing to Boise State. Indeed, the Big Ten’s nonconference record against the Power 4 this season is 6-8, just a tick better than the ACC and well behind the SEC’s mark of 10-6.

But this is the fun of early November rankings. The committee is still finding its footing, figuring out what to prioritize and what to ignore, what’s signal and what’s noise. And that’s where the outrage really helps. It’s certainly not signal, but it can be a really loud noise.

This week’s Anger Index:

There are only two possible explanations for BYU’s treatment in this initial ranking. The first is that the committee members are too sleepy to watch games beyond the Central time zone. The second, and frankly, less rational one, is they simply didn’t do much homework.

It’s certainly possible the committee members are so enthralled with metrics such as the FPI (where BYU ranks 28th) or SP+ (22nd) that they’ve determined the Cougars’ actual record isn’t as important. This is incredibly foolish. The FPI and SP+ certainly have their value, but they’re probabilistic metrics, designed to gauge the likelihood of future success. They’re in no way a ranking of actual results. (That’s why USC is still No. 17 in the FPI, despite Lincoln Riley spending his days wistfully scrolling through old pictures of Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray and wondering if Oklahoma might want to get back together.)

To look at actual results paints a clear picture.

BYU (No. 4) has a better strength of record than Ohio State (No. 5), has played roughly the same quality schedule as Texas and has two wins against other teams ranked in the committee’s top 25 — as many as Ohio State, Texas, Penn State, Tennessee and Indiana (all ranked ahead of the Cougars) combined.

Indiana’s rags-to-riches story is wonderful, of course, but how can the committee compare what BYU has done (wins over SMU and Kansas State) against Indiana’s 103rd-ranked strength of schedule?

And this particular snub has significant effects. The difference between No. 8 and No. 9 is a home game in the first round, of course, though as a potential conference champion, that’s a moot point. But what if BYU loses a game — perhaps the Big 12 title game? That could not only doom the Cougars from getting a first-round bye, but it could quite likely set up a scenario in which the Big 12 is shuffled outside the top four conferences entirely, passed by upstart Boise State.

What’s clear from this first round of rankings is the committee absolutely loves the Big Ten — with four teams ranked ahead of a subjectively more accomplished BYU team — and the Big 12 is going to face some serious headwinds.

There’s a great, though little watched, TV show from the 2010s called “Rectify,” about a man who escapes death row after new evidence is found, only to be constantly harassed by the same system that fraudulently locked him away for 20 years. This is basically the story of SMU.

Let’s do a quick blind résumé here.

Team A: 8-1 record, No. 13 strength of record, two wins vs. ranked opponents, loss to SP+ No. 22, .578 opponent win percentage

Team B: 7-1 record, No. 15 strength of record, two wins vs. ranked opponents, loss to SP+ No. 91, .567 opponent win percentage

OK, you probably guessed Team A is SMU. The Mustangs have wins against Louisville and Pitt — both relatively emphatic — and their lone loss came to No. 9 BYU, which came before a quarterback change and included five red zone drives that amounted to only six total points.

Team B? That’s Notre Dame. The Irish have the worst loss by far (to Northern Illinois) of any team in the top 25, beat a common opponent by the same score (though, while SMU outgained Louisville by 20 yards, the Cardinals actually outgained Notre Dame by 115) and have played one fewer game.

The difference? SMU has the stigma — of the death penalty, of the upstart program new to the Power 4, of being unworthy. Notre Dame is the big brand, and that results in being ranked three spots higher and, if the playoff were held today, getting in, while the Mustangs are left out.

There are three two-loss SEC teams ranked ahead of Ole Miss, which seems to be a perfectly reasonable consensus if you look at the AP poll, too. But are we sure that’s so reasonable?

Two stats we like to look at to measure a team’s quality are success rate (how often does a team make a play that improves its odds of winning) and explosiveness. Measure the differentials in each between offense and defense, then plot those out, and you’ll get a pretty clear look of who’s truly dominant in college football this season.

Explosive Play differential vs. Successful Play differential

Auburn & Ark make no sense
Iowa & Iowa St are twinsies!
Is Ole Miss undervalued? pic.twitter.com/h87SKCdOtr

— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) November 3, 2024

That outer band that features Penn State, Texas, Miami, Ohio State and Indiana (and notably, not Oregon, Alabama, LSU or Texas A&M)? That’s where Ole Miss lives.

The Rebels have two losses this season, each by three points, both in games they outgained the winning team. They lost to LSU on the road and, yes, somehow lost to a dismal Kentucky team. But hey, LSU lost to USC, too. It has been a weird season.

SP+ loves Ole Miss. The Rebels check in at No. 4 there, behind only Ohio State, Texas and Georgia.

The FPI agrees, ranking the Rebels fifth.

In ESPN’s game control metric, no team is better. Ole Miss has the third-best average in-game win percentage. That suggests a lot of strange twists, and bad luck was involved with its losses. These are things the committee should be evaluating when comparing like teams.

But how about this comparison?

Team A: 7-2, 23 points per game scoring margin vs. FBS, 1 loss to unranked, three wins vs. SP+ top 40

Team B: 7-2, 19 points per game scoring margin vs. FBS, 1 loss to unranked, three wins vs. SP+ top 40

Pretty similar, eh?

Of course, one of them is Ole Miss. That’s Team A this time around.

Team B is Alabama, ranked five spots higher.

Sure, this situation can be resolved quite easily this weekend with a win over Georgia, but Ole Miss starting at the back of the pack of SEC contenders seems like a miss by the committee, even if the math will change substantially before the next rankings are revealed.

Oh, thanks so much for the No. 25 nod, committee. All Army has done is win every game without trailing the entire season. Last season, when Liberty waltzed through its weakest-in-the-nation schedule, the committee had no objections to giving the Flames enough love to make a New Year’s Six bowl. But Army? At No. 25? Thirteen spots behind Boise State, the Knights’ competition for the Group of 5’s bid? Something tells us some spies from Air Force have infiltrated the committee’s room in some sort of Manchurian Candidate scenario.

Sure, the Seminoles are terrible now, and yes, the committee this season has plenty of new faces, but that doesn’t mean folks in Tallahassee have forgiven or forgotten what happened a year ago. Before the committee’s playoff snub, FSU had won 19 straight games and averaged 39 points. Since the snub, the Noles are 1-9 and haven’t scored 21 points in any game. Who’s to blame for this? Mike Norvell? The coaching staff? DJ Uiagalelei and the other struggling QBs? Well, sure. But it’s much easier to just blame the committee. Those folks killed Florida State’s playoff hopes and ended their run of success. The least they could do this year is rank them No. 25 just for fun.

Also angry: South Carolina (5-3, unranked), Vanderbilt (6-3, unranked), Georgia (7-1, No. 3), Louisville (6-3, No. 22), everyone who is not in the Big Ten.

CLEMSON, S.C. — It has been a rough few days for Clemson coach Dabo Swinney. First, his 19th-ranked Tigers lost to Louisville on Saturday night, then he was told he couldn’t vote Tuesday at his polling place.

Swinney, whose given name is William, explained that the voting system had locked him out, saying a “William Swinney” had already voted last week. Swinney said it was his oldest son, Will, and not him.

“They done voted me out of the state,” Swinney said. “We’re 6-2 and 5-1 [in the Atlantic Coast Conference], man. They done shipped me off.”

Dabo Swinney had to complete a paper ballot and was told there will be a hearing Friday to resolve the issue.

“I was trying to do my best and be a good citizen and go vote,” he said. “Sometimes doing your best ain’t good enough. You have to keep going though, keep figuring it out.”

Unbeaten Oregon is the No. 1 team in the first rankings released by the College Football Playoff selection committee Tuesday.

The Ducks were followed by Ohio State, Georgia, Miami and Texas in the top five.

Penn State, Tennessee, Indiana, BYU, Notre Dame, Alabama and Boise State round out the top 12, which would compete in the newly expanded playoff at season’s end.

Because the top four seeds must be conference champions under the new CFP format, Oregon (Big Ten), Georgia (SEC), Miami (ACC) and BYU (Big 12) would receive first-round byes if the initial rankings were used for the 12-team bracket.

The first-round games would look like this: Boise State at Ohio State, Alabama at Texas, Notre Dame at Penn State and Indiana at Tennessee.

Ohio State remains the consensus betting favorite to win the national title at ESPN BET at +325, slightly ahead of Georgia and Oregon, both at +400. There were no significant changes to the odds to win the national title after the rankings were released.

The SEC and Big Ten each had four teams in the top 12. Undefeated BYU is the lone Big 12 program in the top 12, and unbeaten Miami is the only ACC team in the top 12 after Clemson suffered its second defeat last week, to Louisville at home.

Boise State, whose only loss was by three points at Oregon on Sept. 7, was the highest-ranked team from a Group of 5 conference.

SMU was No. 13 in the selection committee’s rankings, followed by Texas A&M, LSU, Ole Miss, Iowa State, Pittsburgh, Kansas State and Colorado.

Washington State, Louisville, Clemson, Missouri and unbeaten Army rounded out the top 25.

After 10 years with a four-team playoff, CFP selection committee chairman Warde Manuel said the group’s mission hasn’t changed with an expanded bracket.

“The process is the same,” Manuel said. “We rank the best 25 teams, one through 25, and that’s exactly what this process is designed to do from the very beginning.”

Ohio State, coming off last week’s impressive 20-13 victory at Penn State, got the nod for the No. 2 spot over Georgia, according to Manuel, because of its one-point loss at Oregon. The Bulldogs fell 41-34 at Alabama, after trailing by 28 points in the first half, and had closer-than-expected wins over Kentucky, Mississippi State and Florida.

Georgia defeated Texas 30-15 on the road on Oct. 19. The Longhorns were ranked No. 1 in the AP and coaches’ poll at the time.

“You know, we’re splitting hairs in terms of looking at two great teams,” said Manuel, Michigan’s athletic director.

Indiana, which is 9-0 for the first time in program history after beating Michigan State 47-10 last week, was one spot ahead of BYU. The Hoosiers haven’t yet beaten a ranked opponent and have played the 103rd-ranked schedule to this point. They will host defending national champion Michigan on Saturday and play at Ohio State on Nov. 23.

The Cougars are 8-0 heading into Saturday’s game at rival Utah. They won 18-15 at SMU and blasted Kansas State 38-9 at home.

“I mean Indiana, their strength of schedule is not as strong as BYU,” Manuel said. “But what Indiana has done on the field, when we look at those games, they’re winning by double digits, averaging 33 points a game more than their opponents. They’re solid on both sides, offensively and defensively. They’re just a really, really great team, and so is BYU.”

Army (8-0) would have to jump Boise State to earn an automatic selection as the fifth-highest-ranked conference champion. The Black Nights haven’t yet defeated a ranked opponent. They play Notre Dame at Yankee Stadium in New York City on Nov. 23.

The four first-round games will be played at the home campus of the higher-seeded teams on Dec. 20 and 21. The four quarterfinal games will be staged at the VRBO Fiesta Bowl, Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl presented by Prudential and Allstate Sugar Bowl on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1.

The two semifinal games will take place at the Capital One Orange Bowl and Goodyear Cotton Bowl on Jan. 9 and 10.

The CFP National Championship presented by AT&T is scheduled for Jan. 20 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

ESPN’s David Purdum contributed to this report.