The College Football Playoff selection committee is supposed to ignore this. Look the other way. Forget about it. Pretend the AP preseason Top 25 released today doesn't exist.
Its 13 members "will be required to discredit polls wherein initial rankings are established before competition has occurred," according to CFP protocol. But not here. Not in the rest of the college football world. Here's a look at what the first official (and yet still unofficial) poll of the season could mean to the playoff picture:
1. At least two CFP contenders will be playing from behind with little margin for error: The losers of two early nonconference matchups will be in a similar predicament.