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2025 Week 9 CFP Resume Rankings!

  • Writer: John W
    John W
  • 1 minute ago
  • 4 min read

Welcome back to the 2025 College Football Playoff Resume Rankings!


We are one week away from our inaugural CFP rankings in our second year of the 12-team playoffs.  Gone are the days of top 4 seeds for the conference champions, so the focus this week is in understanding where the AP Poll and the CFP Rankings may differ and why.  First, let’s dive right into our week 9 CFP Resume Rankings.


Week 9 CFP Resume Rankings

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Notes on the CFP Resume Rankings

  • AP vs CFP Resumes:

Amongst several AP ranking inconsistencies with the resumes, the committee has an opportunity to right a few ranking wrongs with the initial rankings next week.  If the initial rankings were released this week, here are three examples we will breakdown to reflect the potential disconnect between the two ranking systems.


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Let’s begin with the first debate that will manifest.  Unbeaten Ohio State, Indiana, and Texas A&M would hold the top 3 spots in some ranked order.  The placement of AP #8 Georgia Tech and AP #10 BYU would invite questions, both relative to other 1-loss teams as well as to each other.  Upon initial reflection, the teams may appear similar, but when we dive into the resumes, we find glaring disparities that make the appropriate ranking order clear.  Let’s start with the computer strength ratings/rankings.  In our composite rating system, driven by the top 30 correlated models relative to 2025 season results, BYU ranks as the 13th strongest team in the country.  Georgia Tech, despite being unbeaten, ranks as the 22nd strongest team.  The gap between these two teams on strength is wide, and can be seen in the dispersion plots in the resume cards!  Ok, how about the raw resume.  Again, BYU comes out on top, and it is in part due to Clemson falling off of the face of the earth, rating as Georgia Tech’s 3rd best win.  BYU on the other hand has our only “great” win between the two when the Cougars took down Utah at home.  When the strength tells you one team is better, and the raw resume tells you the same team has demonstrated their strength against higher quality teams, it’s reasonable to rank that team higher.


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Pivoting now to a pair of 1-loss teams, AP #15 Virginia and AP #17 Cincinnati are a contrast of resumes.  Both are likely to be ranked near each other in a hypothetical week 9 committee ranking, and would serve as a barometer of whether the committee values demonstrated strength more, or achieved resume.  Both Cincinnati and Virginia have a wide dispersion of computer ratings across the input models, but in aggregate Cincinnati is consistently ahead.  Cincinnati rates as the stronger team in 40 of our 67 models, including 26 of the 30 that contributed to the composite.  The models with UVA ahead on strength happen to be those that don’t correlate well with season results.  On the raw resume side, Virginia comes out ahead, bolstered predominantly by the strong win at Louisville.  Both teams have an early loss, and while Virginia has the best win, on paper Cincinnati has the stronger overall resume and should be ranked ahead.  The committee has shown inconsistency in ranking teams with bias towards strength or raw resume, so this would be a ranking that maybe tells us where this year’s committee’s bias may fall.


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In our third resume comparison, we look at the case for AP #14 Tennessee and AP #24 Utah.  Neither team has a truly bad loss, though Tennessee’s losses are to slightly stronger teams than Utah.  Neither team has a particularly great win either, and again, Tennessee’s wins are slightly better on paper.  Tennessee is ranked 10 spots higher in the AP Poll, but what do the computers think?  Amazingly, the composite strength ratings continue to show Utah as a top 10 team, coming in at #9, 9 spots ahead of Tennessee.  The committee will look at game control and team quality metrics to support their evaluation, and those metrics are going to favor Utah over Tennessee.  Will that sway the committee opinion when Tennessee has the better wins and losses (marginally)?  Our resume rankings would suggest that Utah should be ranked ahead, although just barely, on account of the team strength ratings.

 

  • Conference Breakdown:

If the playoff field were set today, we’d project four SEC teams (Texas A&M, Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss), three Big Ten (Indiana, Ohio State, Oregon), two ACC (Miami, Georgia Tech), one Big 12 (BYU), one independent (Notre Dame), and one G5 representative (South Florida).


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Top 10 Unexpected Results of the Season

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Week 9 did not introduce a new top 10 upset on the season, which makes sense given the chalky nature of the games played this past weekend.  Memphis taking down South Florida one week after a shocking loss to UAB does strengthen their grip atop the upset rankings.  Here’s to hoping we get some new entries from the week 10 matchups!


Week 10 Game of the Week

  • No. 14 Tennessee vs No. 18 Oklahoma:

Here we go again, another week with an Oklahoma game atop our Game Quality ratings.  Last week Ole Miss delivered the Sooners a second loss of the season, and Tennessee hopes to produce a third in what amounts to an elimination game for both of these teams for CFP contention.  We have Tennessee winning this game by a single point!  The close second this week features Texas as a 2-point favorite over Vanderbilt at home, in a must win game to remain alive for the CFP.


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Top Models for Week 9: The Models that Beat Our Composite


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That’s a wrap for Week 9! If you have questions about the CFP Resume Rankings or want to follow along, find us @CFPResumeRanks on X. Our DMs are open for inquiries or partnership opportunities. Have a great week, and let’s see what Week 10 brings!


[Note: For tables instead of graphics, visit our resume rankings page at https://cfpresumerankings.wixsite.com/cfpresumerankings/cfp-resume-rankings]

 
 
 

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