Where Tennessee is ranked in the first College Football Playoff selection committee rankings

Tennessee on Tuesday night was ranked No. 7 in the first College Football Playoff rankings of the season in the new 12-team playoff era. The projected bracket had the Vols as the No. 8 seed hosting No. 9 Indiana.

Indiana was ranked No. 8 and was the No. 9 seed in the bracket. BYU is the No. 4 seed but ranked No. 9. Notre Dame is the No. 10 seed and Alabama was in the field as the No. 11 seed, ahead of No. 12 Boise State. SMU was the first team out of the field, ranked No. 13, and Texas A&M came in at No. 14.

Oregon was the No. 1 overall seed, ahead of No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Georgia, No. 4 Miami and No. 5 Texas.

Tennessee (7-1, 4-1 SEC), which was ranked No. 6 in the Coaches Poll and No. 7 in the Associated Press Top 25 on Sunday, hosts Mississippi State (2-7, 0-5) on Saturday (7 p.m. Eastern Time, ESPN) at Neyland Stadium.

The Vols go to Georgia next Saturday for a 7:30 p.m. ET start on ABC at Sanford Stadium in Athens. The regular-season schedule closes with a home game against UTEP on November 23 and a road game at Vanderbilt on November 30.

The playoff rankings will be updated five times over five weeks — every Tuesday night — before the final rankings are released on Sunday, December 8.

Next week’s rankings update will be on ESPN on Tuesday at 8:30-9 p.m. ET, at halftime of the State Farm Champions Classic college basketball games. Other ranking updates will be November 19 (7-8 p.m. ET), November 26 (8-9 p.m. ET) and December 3 (7-7:30 p.m. ET).

Dates and destinations for the College Football Playoff

The first game in the 12-team College Football Playoff era will be played on Friday, December 20, in an 8 p.m. Eastern Time start on ESPN. A triple header will follow on Saturday, December 21: Noon ET on TNT, 4 p.m. ET on TNT and 8 p.m. ET on ESPN.

Quarterfinal games will be played at the Fiesta Bowl, Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl. The Fiesta Bowl will be played on New Year’s Eve in a 7:30 p.m. ET start on ESPN. The other three will be played on New Year’s Day, with the Peach Bowl starting at 1 p.m. ET (ESPN), the Rose Bowl at 5 p.m. ET (ESPN) and the Sugar Bowl at 8:45 p.m. ET (ESPN). 

The semifinal round will be played at the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl. The Orange Bowl will be played on Thursday, January 9 (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) and the Cotton Bowl will be played on Friday, January 10 (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).

The national championship game will be played in Atlanta, set for Monday, January 20 at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.

About the College Football Playoff 

The 12 teams in the playoff are the five conference champions ranked highest by the CFP selection committee, plus the next seven highest-ranked teams by the committee. 

The four highest-ranked champions will be seeded No. 1 through No. 4 and will receive a bye into the quarterfinal round. The fifth conference champion will be seeded where it was ranked by the committee or 12th if it is outside the top 12.

Non-conference champions will be seeded No. 5 through No. 12, even if they’re ranked in the top four, meaning bracket seeding can look different than the final CFP rankings. Teams seeded No. 5 through No. 8 will host first-round playoff games on campus.

Historic bowl relationships and CFP rankings will be taken into consideration when assigning bowl destinations for the top four seeds in the quarterfinal round.

No modifications will be made to the bracket to avoid rematches between teams that have already played this season. The bracket will remain throughout and will not be reseeded. The highest-seeded team will receive preferential bowl placement for the semifinal round.