Ohio State gets top billing in opening College Football Playoff rankings; Indiana, Texas A&M next

Ohio State received top billing in the first College Football Playoff rankings of the season Tuesday, followed by Indiana, Texas A&M and Alabama.

The top three head into the final four weeks of the regular season undefeated. Another team with no losses, BYU of the Big 12, was ranked seventh.

At No. 5 was Georgia, followed by Mississippi. All of the top six came from either the Big Ten or Southeastern Conference — a dose of business as usual despite a season that has been anything but predictable.

This marked the first of six weekly rankings the 12-person playoff committee will release this season, ending Dec. 6 when the final list will set the bracket for college football’s 12-team playoff.

That tournament begins Dec. 19-20 with four games on the campus of seeds No. 5-8. The top four seeds will play over the New Year holiday, and the title game is set for Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium outside Miami.

Texas Tech was ranked eighth, and Oregon came in at No. 9. Rounding out the top 12 were Notre Dame, Texas and Oklahoma.

Pitt came in at No. 24.

But if the bracket were set based on these rankings, the Longhorns and Sooners would miss out — bumped by No. 14 Virginia of the Atlantic Coast and Memphis of the American thanks to a rule that places the five best-ranked conference champions into the bracket even if they’re not in the top 12.

Memphis wasn’t among the committee’s top 25 but was still the highest-ranked leader in a Group of 5 conference.

Still holding out hope are teams such as 16th-ranked Vanderbilt and 17th-ranked Georgia Tech, each of whom spent time in the AP Top 10 this season thanks to upsets that turned college football upside down through September and October.