Grading the College Football Playoff Selection Committee’s first 12-team bracket: How did they do?

Move over, brand recognition. Welcome, most-deserving team. The selection committee’s decision to sidestep Alabama (9-3) in favor of SMU (11-2) in the final College Football Playoff Rankings was a brave call — and the right decision — on Selection Sunday. The report card’s final grade is satisfactory after the committee avoided a disruptive precedent that would’ve been set had the three-loss Crimson Tide, who failed to reach their conference championship game, been handed the “last team in” distinction.

The Mustangs, whose setbacks this season came against two opponents with double-digit wins and not Vanderbilt or Oklahoma, did what was necessary to maintain their stance inside the top 12 by erasing a 17-point deficit in the fourth quarter against Clemson (10-3) only to lose as time expired.

College Football Playoff chair Warde Manuel has a difficult job. He’s the weekly mouthpiece for a committee tasked with justifying every selection and movement within the rankings with no shot at appeasing the masses. But his group appears to have picked the right group of teams in the first season of playoff expansion. 

“It was quite a debate,” Manuel told ESPN. “We value strength of schedule, which is why Alabama — as a three-loss team — was ranked ahead of other teams that have two losses. … In the balance of it, in the way SMU played in that game, losing on a last-second field goal … we just felt that, in this particular case, SMU still had the nod at 10 above Alabama. But it’s no disrespect to Alabama’s strength of schedule. It’s merely looking at the entire body of work of both teams.”

Auto-bids given to five conference champions and seeding confusion must be revised moving forward, but as the dust settles in Grapevine, Texas, the selection committee can look at the field and know there’s no justifiable arguments for any of the excluded teams for inclusion.

Still, subjective “data point” abnormalities need to be addressed, however. Much to South Carolina (9-3) coach Shane Beamer’s chagrin after a week’s worth of chatter surrounding quality wins, Clemson’s win over SMU failed to beef up the Gamecocks’ resume despite beating the Tigers last week.

How is that possible? Manuel explained it after the selection committee’s penultimate rankings.

“Teams can move up and down, but what you won’t see is teams who are not playing move above or below other teams who are not playing,” Manuel said.

More clarification is needed for that answer. Where’s the transparency? Is a team’s full body of work not graded and then re-assessed after conference championship games? Apparently not if you’re out of the mix entering the final weekend.

What would’ve made the selection committee’s final vote more chaotic was the potential injury scenario had Texas (11-2) held on to beat Georgia (11-2) in overtime to win the SEC Championship. There were already murmurs across social media and various work Slack channels on how the selection committee would handle a three-loss Bulldogs team, playing without their starting quarterback after Carson Beck went down with an injury.

After all, there’s recent history for this and according to selection committee protocol, relevant factors “such as unavailability of key players and coaches that may have affected a team’s performance during the season or likely will affect its postseason performance.”

That “data point” is what kept then-unbeaten Florida State out of last season’s playoff following an injury to Jordan Travis. At the time, an anonymous selection committee member told CBS Sports they excluded Florida State from the final four because they did not think the Seminoles could win two more games against elite competition with Travis at quarterback.

Luckily for the committee, that precedent was not re-visited and the Bulldogs secured the No. 2 overall seed behind unbeaten and top-ranked Oregon.

2024-25 College Football Playoff bracket

* Automatic bid | ^ First-round bye | ~ First-round host

Boise State (12-1) and Arizona State (11-2) rightfully received top-4 seeds. The Broncos and Sun Devils played their best football of the season down the stretch and were rewarded as a result. Clemson made it easy on the committee after its bid-stealing show in Charlotte meant the Tigers were guaranteed to be the lowest-ranked conference champion receiving an auto-berth.

The primary question from many entering Sunday’s final reveal was how the No. 5, 6 and 7 seeds would shake out between Notre Dame (11-1), Penn State (11-2) and Texas. All three were virtually guaranteed home games given their respective finishes, but which squad was going to get the most favorable draw was important.

The Longhorns ended the season without a win over a ranked team in the selection committee’s final top 25. The Nittany Lions managed one (Illinois), the same number as the Fighting Irish (Army). Texas lost twice to Georgia while Penn State’s losses came against Ohio State and Oregon. Notre Dame had the single-worst setback among playoff entrants this season, falling to Northern Illinois in September. The committee chose not to punish Texas or Penn State for losing their conference championship games, slotting the Longhorns as the No. 5 seed and Penn State as No. 6. 

MORE: Kickoff times, locations for 12-team CFP