With conference championship games in the books, the attention now turns to the release of the final selection committee rankings for the 2024 season and the bracket reveal for the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff. But while those committee members will debate in a conference room on the merits of teams fighting for seeds, byes and home-field advantage, the sport's oldest authoritative voice for ranking college football teams still needs to weigh in one final time before the bowl season begins.
Since 1936, the AP Top 25 poll has been a constant that connects college football's present to its past. Its voters have ballots that are made public each week, and they spend much the first two months of the season helping fans understand the landscape when it comes to the top teams in the country. Those voters will be asked to fill out their ballots once again after conference championship Saturday, and so while the movement within the rankings might be minimal, we can project the changes coming out of conference championship Saturday and take note of how those adjustments might also be reflected in the final CFP Rankings.
Voters will, of course, face the same dilemma regarding how to rank both a two-loss Georgia team that won the SEC championship in an overtime thriller and the SEC runner-up, Texas, who also has two losses but both are to the Bulldogs. They must also figure out where to place Penn State after a narrow defeat to the No. 1 team in the country, and they will also get their chance to weigh in on the Boise State-Arizona State debate as both programs are vying to be among the top four conference champions in the eyes of the selection committee.
So with a reminder that we're predicting how those AP voters will handle the results of Friday and Saturday, here's how we project the new AP Top 25 to look on Sunday after the conference championship games:
1. Oregon (1): The unanimous No. 1 team will remain No. 1 with a bullet after the Ducks outlasted Penn State to hold on to their position atop of all of college football heading into the postseason.
2. Georgia (5): There might not be much uniformity to the Bulldogs' landing spot with an expected jump coming in the wake of their SEC Championship Game win against Texas. Some voters will consider their two losses a weight that limits their rise, while others will note two wins against a Texas team that entered the weekend solidly at No. 2.
3. Notre Dame (4): With no conference championship to play for, the independent Fighting Irish were off this week and will find out their first-round playoff matchup on Sunday.
4. Tennessee (6): The Vols were off during conference championship week and will soon find out how they stack up against the other teams in the College Football Playoff field.
5. Texas (2): Now that Texas has two losses, we are going to see some real criticism for the strength of their wins against other two-loss teams. The Longhorns have one of the best defenses in the country and have controlled most of their games against teams not named Georgia, but they enter Selection Sunday with zero wins against teams who won more than eight games.
6. Ohio State (7): The Buckeyes missed out on the Big Ten title game with last week's loss to Michigan, but they are well-positioned to keep their national title hopes alive in the College Football Playoff.
7. Penn State (3): The landing spot for the Nittany Lions likely brings their head-to-head result against Ohio State back into play; many voters will use the Buckeyes' position as a way to slot the Nittany Lions on their ballots.
8. Boise State (10): The Broncos trailed Indiana by just 23 voting points (1,059-to-1,036) last week, which definitely opens the door for a swap in the order following a win against UNLV in the Mountain West Championship Game.
9. Indiana (9): The Hoosiers were off this weekend and will find out their postseason future on Sunday.
10. Arizona State (12): Like Boise State, we are projecting a small boost from a conference title game win. It seems especially likely here coming from the AP voters, considering they had the Sun Devils just eight voting points (840-to-832) behind Alabama last week, and then Arizona State absolutely pasted Iowa State in the Big 12 Championship Game.
11. Alabama (11): The Crimson Tide were off this weekend and will find out their postseason future on Sunday.
12. South Carolina (13): The Gamecocks were off this weekend and will find out their postseason future on Sunday.
13. Clemson (18): An epic, 56-yard walk-off field goal moves Clemson up in the rankings and into the College Football Playoff for the seventh time in program history.
14. SMU (8): Whether the selection committee will punish SMU for losing in the conference championship game carries its own issues regarding the future of the College Football Playoff, but those issues won't resonate as much with AP voters who are going to knock the Mustangs down in the rankings.
15. Miami (14): The Hurricanes were off this weekend and will find out their postseason future on Sunday.
16. Ole Miss (15): The Rebels were off this weekend and will find out their postseason future on Sunday.
17. Iowa State (16): The Cyclones may have lost big to Arizona State, but a head-to-head win against BYU makes it unlikely there will be a big drop in the rankings.
18. BYU (17): The Cougars were off this weekend and will find out their postseason future on Sunday.
19. Colorado (20): The Buffaloes were off this weekend and will find out their postseason future on Sunday.
20. Illinois (21): The Fighting Illini were off this weekend and will find out their postseason future on Sunday.
21. Army (24): If you look at the voting points from last week, there is a gap between Illinois and Missouri that serves as a likely landing spot for an Army team that will receive a boost from voters after downing Tulane in the AAC Championship Game. Even though Tulane is no longer ranked, the Green Wave were favored to win and Army ran right through them to the tune of a 35-14 win for the program's first-ever conference championship.
22. Missouri (22): The Tigers were off this weekend and will find out their postseason future on Sunday.
23. Syracuse (23): The Orange were off this weekend and will find out their postseason future on Sunday.
24. Memphis (25): The Tigers were off this weekend and will find out their postseason future on Sunday.
25. UNLV (19): It seems unlikely that AP voters would drop UNLV all the way out of the rankings. First, the Rebels lost by 14 points on the road to a team they consider among the 10 best in the country. The Rebels also still have 10 wins on the season. But there is also not much of a consensus support behind other teams outside the top 25, and I think there's too much ground to make up for Texas A&M (8-4), for example, to jump ahead of UNLV in the final rankings.
Projected to drop out: None
