Ole Miss inside the Top 15 in first College Football Playoff rankings of the season
The Associated Press and Coaches Polls are what fans live by for most of the college football season but Tuesday brought about the Top 25 that truly matters for Ole Miss.
ESPN revealed the College Football Playoff’s first Top 25 rankings of the season which is what will dictate which four teams will play for a national championship in January.
Coming off its win at Texas A&M this past Saturday Ole Miss was ranked No. 11 in the first CFP rankings. The Rebels are ranked No. 11 in the latest AP Poll and No. 10 in the Coaches Poll.
For the first time since 1990 Ole Miss is off to a 8-1 start through its first nine games. The Rebels are off to a 4-1 start through their first five Southeastern Conference games since 2015.
“Very pleased. We’ve got a lot of work to do, a lot of improvement to do,” said Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin on Monday. “But to be 8-1 at the bye. If you would’ve said at the beginning of the year, with so many brand-new players and the quarterback question. Obviously you’d love to be 9-0, but we lost a lot of people from last year, and there were a lot of questions coming in with all the portal guys and how they’d fit and all of that. We’ve got a lot of work to do to improve, but record-wise, that’s pretty good considering all those things.”
Including Tuesday’s initial rankings there will be five weeks of new rankings introduced through November, leading up to Championship Saturday on Dec. 3.
The CFP rankings will see a shakeup immediately with two big Top 15 showdowns taking place in the SEC. No. 3 Georgia (8-0, 5-0 SEC) hosts No. 1 Tennessee (8-0, 4-0) and No. 10 LSU (6-2, 4-1) hosts No. 6 Alabama (7-1, 4-1) on Saturday.
Ole Miss will then face the Crimson Tide on Nov. 12 in what could be for the SEC West lead if LSU falls at home this weekend.
The final rankings will be revealed on Dec. 4 when the College Football Playoff’s final four will be revealed along with the New Year’s Six bowls and rest of the bowl game matchups.
Related: Ole Miss hits the bye in need of rest and resetting for November push
Here are the full CFP Top 25 rankings:
- Tennessee
- Ohio State
- Georgia
- Clemson
- Michigan
- Alabama
- TCU
- Oregon
- Southern California
- LSU
- Ole Miss
- UCLA
- Kansas State
- Utah
- Penn State
- Illinois
- North Carolina
- Oklahoma State
- Tulane
- Syracuse
- Wake Forest
- North Carolina State
- Oregon State
- Texas
- Central Florida
