When Are the 2024 College Football Playoff Rankings Released?
Believe it or not, college football is going to get even more intense.
If you thought the first couple of months of the 2024/25 college football season were exciting, hold on to your helmet, because the College Football Playoffs are right around the corner.
As the temps outside are cooling down, Big Ten and Notre Dame college football action on NBC and Peacock is really starting to heat up. That’ll be made ever more evident next week with the hotly anticipated release of the College Football Playoff Committee’s first rankings of the 2024/25 season, the first of six weekly playoff rankings shows.
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Ranking in the top 12 is vital for any football team hoping to make their way into the Playoffs and its newly expanded format. And rankings are also a big deal for fans hoping their team can make the cut, or at least cause their rival not to.
When are the 2024 College Football Playoff rankings released?
The first College Football Playoff rankings will be released from 7-8 p.m. ET on Tuesday, November 5, 2024.
Of course, the first rankings show revealing the Top 25 ranked schools in the FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) is just the beginning. But the rankings matter more and more throughout November and December, giving teams extra incentive to try and move on up. But it’s the final ranking that ultimately determines who will be participating in the very first expanded College Football Playoffs.
So when are those rankings supposed to drop?
When are 2024 College Football Playoff rankings announced each week?
According to the NCAA, the College Football Playoff rankings will be released Tuesday, November 12 from approximately 8:30-9 p.m. ET; Tuesday, November 19 from 7-8 p.m. ET; Tuesday, November 26 from 8-9 p.m. ET; Tuesday, December 3 from 7-7:30 p.m. ET; and finally Selection Day, Sunday, December 8, from 12-4 p.m. ET.
So, now that we know when the rankings are going to come out each week, let's take a little refresher course as to just how they work as far as the College Football Playoffs are concerned.
The selection rules feature automatic Playoff bids for the five highest-ranked conference champions… any conference champion, not just those from the biggest conferences. Beyond that, the next seven highest-ranked teams overall will get into the Playoff bracket.
RELATED: Which Teams Are in the Big 10 for the 2024 Football Season?
As far as seedings in that bracket go, the four highest-ranked conference champions will be seeded 1-4, and earn a first-round bye. The remaining eight teams (including the fifth highest-ranked conference champ) will be seeded 5-12 according to their rankings, and compete for quarterfinal slots. For more specifics, check out our primer on how the new College Football Playoffs work.
Once seeds are determined, the Playoffs will work within the structure of a standard seeded tournament bracket, similar to what the NCAA does with college basketball. So yeah, the College Football Playoff Committee is going to have to make some tough decisions, and a lot of worthy teams aren’t going to like those decisions.
So let the drama of the 2024 College Football Playoff rankings commence!
You can bet Notre Dame and plenty of Big Ten teams will be in the mix till the very end, so be sure to keep up with all the action on NBC and Peacock!
