An unusual top five
Miami is No. 1 in the first College Football Playoff rankings of the 2026 season, released on Tuesday. The Hurricanes are 8-0 and took the top spot ahead of Georgia, Utah and Indiana.
The committee's order differs sharply from the AP poll. Notre Dame, fourth in the AP Top 25, is 11th in the playoff ranking. Alabama, ninth in the AP poll, is fifth. UCLA, also undefeated at 8-0, is eighth, with BYU ninth and Ole Miss tenth.
The Alabama question
Alabama is 6-2 with losses to Georgia and Tennessee, yet sits eight places above Tennessee, which beat the Tide by 16 points. Committee chair Hunter Yurachek pointed to Alabama's road win over Kentucky in Week 2 and its home win over South Carolina, saying the committee looked deeper than head-to-head results alone.
Kentucky is sixth at 7-1, with its only loss to Alabama. Texas is seventh. Boise State is 12th, which would mean a first-round trip to Tuscaloosa if the bracket were set today.
A season that resists sorting
This has been a chaotic year, with few teams building clean records. The committee rewarded quality wins in several cases and penalised Notre Dame for a schedule that has produced fewer strong results. Ohio State, at 6-2, is 12th in some projections of the field and outside the top ten here.
None of this is final. The rankings are released weekly, with the second set arriving next Tuesday. Conference championship games can still reshuffle the field, and a loss by Miami or Utah would reopen the top line.
The 12-team bracket gives two-loss teams a path that did not exist a few years ago, which is why Alabama's placement matters less than it appears. What the first ranking does show is how the committee weighs schedule strength against raw record, and how much work Notre Dame, Ohio State and Tennessee have left to do.