When the College Football Playoff top 25 rankings come out in 2025

One of the key dates on college football’s preseason calendar has arrived, as the College Football Playoff selection committee has revealed its full schedule for when it will release its official top 25 rankings over the course of the 2025 season.

As part of its selection process, the committee revealed that it will be employing a suite of advanced analytics when judging teams, a decision it made after looking over its work during the course of the first-ever 12-team playoff.

“Following the first year of the 12-team playoff, the meeting marked the culmination of six months of offseason work reviewing the committee’s policies, procedures, and data analytics to ensure the group is equipped with the best resources available when ranking the country’s top 25 college football teams,” the committee said.

“As part of these offseason efforts, the CFP convened two groups, a data analytics panel and a membership panel to assess these areas. Following months of work, these groups reviewed their proposed modifications with the CFP management committee and selection committee.”

When will they reveal their handiwork? Here’s the full schedule for when the College Football Playoff rankings will go live in the 2025 season.

College Football Playoff rankings schedule for 2025

All times Eastern

CFP rankings release No. 1
Tues., Nov. 4 at 8 p.m.

CFP rankings release No. 2
Tues., Nov. 11 at 7 p.m.

CFP rankings release No. 3
Tues., Nov. 18 at 8:30 p.m.

CFP rankings release No. 4
Tues., Nov. 25 at 7 p.m.

CFP rankings release No. 5
Tues., Dec. 2 at 7 p.m.

Selection Sunday
Sun., Dec. 7 at 12 p.m.

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College football playoff rankings criteria

College Football Playoff selectors create top 25 rankings based on their evaluation of teams’ performance on the field.

The committee employs several metrics to select the best teams.

• Strength of schedule
• Head-to-head game results
• Results vs. teams in top 25 rankings
• Results vs. common opponents
• Conference championships

College Football Playoff electors also use advanced analytics to gauge teams’ play, and those numbers will play a more formal role in the committee creating its top 25 rankings.

“Changes for the upcoming season include enhancements to the tools that the selection committee uses to assess schedule strength and how teams perform against their schedule,” the College Football Playoff said. 

“The current schedule strength metric has been adjusted to apply greater weight to games against strong opponents. An additional metric, record strength, has been added to the selection committee’s analysis to go beyond a team’s schedule strength to assess how a team performed against that schedule.

“This metric rewards teams defeating high-quality opponents while minimizing the penalty for losing to such a team. Conversely, these changes will provide minimal reward for defeating a lower-quality opponent while imposing a greater penalty for losing to such a team.”