College Football Playoff Rankings: Oregon goes wire-to-wire at No. 1, Alabama in top 12 but out of bracket

CBS Sports design

The sixth and final edition of the College Football Playoff Rankings were released Sunday afternoon looking the same at the top as they have all season. Oregon ultimately went wire-to-wire maintaining its spot at No. 1 as has been the case in every set of rankings during this initial year of the expanded 12-team field. The only undefeated team in the FBS, the Ducks are making their second playoff appearance overall — first since the four-team field debuted after the 2014 season.

Eight of 11 teams ranked No. 1 in a season’s initial CFP Rankings ultimately reached the playoff in the four-team era with Mississippi State (2014), Tennessee (2022) and Ohio State (2023) being the exceptions. Oregon has continued that tradition.

Georgia, Texas, Penn State and Notre Dame round out the top five — the same teams from the penultimate rankings in a different order given the Bulldogs beat the Longhorns to win the SEC championship and the Nittany Lions lost to the Ducks in the Big Ten Championship Game while the Fighting Irish did not play Saturday.

Ultimately, the battle for the final at-large bid in the playoff was won by SMU over Alabama. Miami, Ole Miss and South Carolina did not have an opportunity to move up and were all ranked behind both teams in last week’s rankings.

The top Group of Five program in Sunday’s release remained Boise State at No. 9, its highest ranking yet this season. With the 12-team playoff model granting automatic bids to the five highest-ranked conference champions, the Broncos received the third bye in the field behind Oregon and Georgia. No. 12 Arizona State picked up the fourth bye, sitting in the bracket’s No. 4 seed.

Let’s take a look at the final CFP Rankings top 25 along with the teams’ respective bracket seedings. Check out the complete 2024-25 College Football Playoff bracket in the first year of the expanded 12-team field.