The first College Football Playoff rankings don’t always look like the final ones. Any ranking before Thanksgiving weekend is simply a snapshot of a moment in time. Take the first-ever CFP rankings in 2014, for instance, which featured Mississippi State as the committee’s first No. 1 team. The Bulldogs did not go on to make the Playoff.
This past Tuesday, the first rankings came out for the 2022 season. Tennessee was No. 1, undefeated TCU ranked behind one-loss (at the time) Alabama, and Georgia sat at No. 3. And then all hell broke loose in college football.