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The debut 2018 College Football Playoff rankings will be released Tuesday night on ESPN at 7 p.m. ET. There’s no doubt that Alabama will debut at No. 1 while the teams joining the Tide in the initial top four will be up for some debate leading up to the release.
How concerned should fans be if their school isn’t in the initial top four released by the committee? History suggests the CFP committee is getting better at nailing the top four upon the initial release but the first two years of the system show that not only can an outsider make the final field, but they can also win it — as was the case with Ohio State in 2014.
So before the first 2018 CFP rankings are released, we thought you may appreciate a look back at how each of the final four fields ranked when the CFP committee released their first poll each season of the College Football Playoff era:
2014 initial Playoff top 4
No. 1 Mississippi State
No. 2 Florida State
No. 3 Auburn
No. 4 Ole Miss
2014 Playoff field
No. 2 FSU
No. 5 Oregon
No. 6 Alabama
No. 16 Ohio State
2015 initial Playoff top 4
No. 1 Clemson
No. 2 LSU
No. 3 Ohio State
No. 4 Alabama
2015 Playoff field
No. 1 Clemson
No. 4 Alabama
No. 7 Michigan State
No. 15 Oklahoma
2016 initial Playoff top 4
No. 1 Alabama
No. 2 Clemson
No. 3 Michigan
No. 4 Texas A&M
2016 Playoff field
No. 1 Alabama
No. 2 Clemson
No. 5 Washington
No. 6 Ohio State
2017 initial Playoff top 4
No. 1 Georgia
No. 2 Alabama
No. 3 Notre Dame
No. 4 Clemson
2017 Playoff field
No. 1 Georgia
No. 2 Alabama
No. 4 Clemson
No. 5 Oklahoma
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
