ESPN Locked Into 5 CFP Rankings Shows—and It Might Be a Problem

The utility of the College Football Playoff’s weekly rankings reveal show, which airs in the five weeks leading up to the official bracket reveal on Tuesday nights on ESPN, has been brought into question after a particularly controversial bracket reveal.

Fans, media members, and administrators criticized the weekly rankings reveal show after flip-flopping on previous decisions, specifically regarding Notre Dame and Miami. Multiple ESPN analysts themselves questioned—live on air this weekend— if the premature rankings show, which airs on their own network, should be nixed altogether.

To change it, ESPN and the College Football Playoff might have to draw up a new contract.

Not So Fast, My Friend

The media-rights contract requires five rankings reveal shows in the lead-up to the CFP bracket reveal on the Sunday after conference championship games, sources at both ESPN and the CFP confirmed to Front Office Sports on Sunday. This is the case both with this current contract and the future CFP media rights contract.

Neither ESPN nor CFP sources would opine on what would happen if the CFP—or ESPN, for that matter—decided that the weekly rankings were no longer in the best interest of the Playoff. 

Seeds of Controversy

During the final Tuesday night rankings reveal on Dec. 2, the CFP Committee ranked Notre Dame at No. 10 and Miami at No. 12 (with BYU at No. 11). The decision was controversial at the time, given Miami had beaten Notre Dame head-to-head at the beginning of the season. Then there was the question of what to do with Alabama, which had overtaken Notre Dame’s No. 9 spot but still had a conference championship to play before the bracket reveal.

Regarding Miami and Notre Dame, at least, the expectation was that the committee had already made its decision that the Fighting Irish were better than the Hurricanes. Neither Miami nor Notre Dame was playing between the reveal show on Tuesday and the official bracket reveal Sunday, though Alabama had its title matchup against Georgia, and BYU had its title game against Texas Tech.

Even leading into the final bracket reveal, the Tuesday rankings were already receiving criticism—including from analysts of the network that broadcasts the reveal itself.

During a discussion regarding the situation on ESPN’s College GameDay on Saturday, Kirk Herbstreit said, “If you talk to the conference commissioners, honestly, I think we should remove, with all due respect, the Tuesday night show.” Fellow analysts and former Alabama coach Nick Saban agreed with him: “You put yourself in a box.”

The comments proved prescient. 

On Sunday, the committee ranked Miami No. 10 overall—over Notre Dame (and BYU, which had lost its conference championship game against Texas Tech)—giving it a slot in the Playoff and leaving the Fighting Irish out altogether. CFP Selection Committee chair Hunter Yuracheck said during the rankings reveal that the committee took another look at that early season matchup this weekend.

“Any rankings ahead of the final rankings are a farce and total waste of time,” Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua told ESPN shortly after the bracket reveal. 

On a call with reporters Sunday, Yuracheck addressed the controversy over the Tuesday show. 

“I think what happens over the course of the five or six weeks that we have the show, it really sets the expectations,” Yuracheck said, adding that it “allows us to share a little peek behind the curtain. College football has the most passionate fan bases across the country. … You’re always going to have controversy. That’s why we debated for so long.”

Yuracheck did not indicate that the group was considering exploring options to get rid of the rankings reveal or its accompanying show.