SEC coaches see broken promise in College Football Playoff rankings

Two teams play head to head, one team wins, the teams have the same record and ... the losing team is ranked ahead of the team that beat it.

Welcome to the 2025 College Football Playoff rankings, where up is down and down is up when it comes to applying strength of schedule to the equation.

“It hasn’t proved to really help you in the rankings,” said Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, whose Rebels lost a spot in the Week 2 rankings despite beating The Citadel 49-0. “But what it will do is get you fired because of five of the top 10 strength of schedules … have fired their head coaches.”

The College Football Playoff rankings debacle is running neck-and-neck with the wild coaching carousel, of which Kiffin is a part, for top billing as the story of the 2025 college football season.

There may not be many tears shed for high-dollar transfer Carson Beck and Miami football, which beat Notre Dame 27-24 in both teams’ season-opening game, only to see the Fighting Irish (8-2) ranked No. 9 and the Hurricanes ranked four spots lower at No. 13 (8-2).

But it has been eye-opening.

“We have teams that played against each other, they both have the same record, and we don’t count that as a factor,” Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “I mean, I don’t know what to tell people.”

Neither does Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer, who flipped on the TV on Tuesday night and saw Notre Dame ranked ahead of the Crimson Tide despite both teams having an 8-2 record.

The Tide arguably had the best four-game stretch in college football when it won, in succession:

• At then-No. 5 Georgia, 24-21

• Versus then-No. 16 Vanderbilt, 30-14

• At then-No. 14 Missouri, 27-24

• Versus then-No. 11 Tennessee, 37-20

Three of those four teams are in the CFP Top 25 still, with the Commodores (No. 14) and Bulldogs (No. 4) still in playoff contention, and the Volunteers holding on at No. 20.

But Alabama, after a 23-21 loss to No. 8 Oklahoma, somehow are a spot behind Notre Dame, despite the Tide having the No. 4 strength of schedule to the Irish’s No. 29 strength of schedule.

“I just know that we have a ton of quality wins,” DeBoer said when asked by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the SEC coaches teleconference for his reaction to the rankings.

“I know that they really look strongly at the losses, but last week was against a very good football team (Oklahoma), and I think we’ve played a lot of really good football. We’ve shown consistency and improvement, throughout the year, and a lot of improvement.”

The SEC coaches, understandably, have great concerns after they were promised the CFP selection committee would factor strength of schedule more heavily, and in fact, added a strength-of-schedule metric specifically to ensure that would happen.

Guess what? It hasn’t happened, and the SEC coaches have reason to be upset.

After all, their athletic directors and presidents signed off a nine-game league slate starting next year with the understanding that the committee would emphasize strength of schedule in the rankings and apply it accordingly.

“I’ve already been on record that said it makes no sense to go to nine games in the SEC,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said. “You know, everybody outside of our league, of course they want us to. They want us to devour each other like we’re doing. So, makes no sense.”

Kiffin brushed off any suggestion that perhaps if Ole Miss had scored 70 or more points against The Citadel two weeks ago it wouldn’t have dropped beneath a Texas Tech team with the same record and a lower strength of schedule.

Drinkwitz bristled at the notion that running up the score, which some teams have done to improve their resume, is the answer.

“If that’s what has to be done, they are ruining a game of football,” Drinkwitz said. “Football is about sportsmanship, it’s about player safety. Having people run into each other at high-level collisions repeatedly when the game is already done is stupidity because they also factor in injuries. In fact, I think the committee also left out an undefeated Florida State team because a quarterback got injured.

“But then they also want you to run up the score and not protect your guys from injury, too. So, like, again, the level of inconsistencies that have been created is hard to ignore.”

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, asked about his league being slighted in the rankings, despite stronger strength of schedules, told the AJC, “We evaluate that every week.”

Sankey holds great credibility with his member schools, having earned that with his leadership over the past 10 1/2 years.

But the decision for the SEC going to a nine-game schedule — against the coaches’ wishes — is an issue that promises to resurface if the CFP rankings don’t work themselves out in a manner that reflects the selection committee is applying the metric.

“We were all given the promise there was going to be a strength-of-schedule metric factored in,” Drinkwitz said. “That didn’t happen.”

Here’s a look at the current CFP Top 25, with their records and strength of schedule:

Current CFP rankings

1. Ohio State (10-0), 48th strength of schedule entering Week 12 games:

2. Indiana (11-0), 38th

3. Texas A&M (10-0), 18th

4. Georgia (9-1), 12th

5. Texas Tech (10-1), 51st

6. Ole Miss (10-1), 32nd

7. Oregon (9-1), 31st

8. Oklahoma (8-2), 10th

9. Notre Dame (8-2), 29th

10. Alabama (8-2), 4th

11. BYU (9-1), 27th

12. Utah (8-2), 46th

13. Miami (8-2), 43rd

14. Vanderbilt (8-2), 21st

15. USC (8-2), 36th

16. Georgia Tech (9-1), 89th

17. Texas (7-3), 6th

18. Michigan (8-2), 34th

19. Virginia (9-2), 80th

20. Tennessee (7-3), 28th

21. Illinois (7-3), 16th

22. Missouri (7-3), 33rd