College Football Playoff projections based on Week 7 national rankings

The start of October means we are getting closer to the weekly College Football Playoff rankings that will ultimately determine which 12 teams in college football will be fortunate to compete for this year’s national title. The College Football Playoff has expanded to 12 spots this year, meaning the race is already heating up for consideration for one of the 12 spots. And after an eventful Week 6, the playoff projections may look a little different this week.

The College Football Playoff selection committee is still weeks away from releasing its weekly rankings, which will be the only rankings used to determine the playoff field. So until then, we can only use the AP Top 25 and US LBM Coaches Poll to get an idea of where things stand. And the latest national rankings would offer slightly different playoff fields if the playoff started this week.

As a refresher on how the College Football Playoff works, the top four highest-ranked conference champions will receive a bye in the first round and will be seeded from 1-4 by the selection committee. The remaining eight spots will be seeded by the committee, with the fifth highest-ranked conference champion being given an automatic spot within the fifth through 12th seeds as determined by the selection committee’s rankings. The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth seeds will host a first-round playoff game on its home campus against the 12th, 11th, 10th, and ninth seeds, respectively.

Here is what the current College Football Playoff would look like if the US LBM Coaches Poll or AP Top 25 was used to determine the rankings. For the purpose of this projection, we will designate the various conference championships to the team currently ranked the highest within the conference.