You know that feeling you got on Christmas morning as a child? You’re excited to leap from your bed, race down the hall, dive into a pile of presents and rip them apart.
The CFP selection committee released its first top 25 ranking on Tuesday, and no, it does not feel like Christmas morning. Don’t believe anyone who tells you so. But it isn’t completely meaningless either. Do not shove it aside as if it is a preseason AP poll.
Take for instance the three points made by data-crunching colleague Pat Forde this week: (1) there has never been a year in which all of the committee’s first top-four teams missed the CFP; (2) the national champion in seven of eight years was one of the top four teams in the first rankings; and (3) more than half of the 32 CFP participants—19—were in the top four of the first rankings.
