Committee ranks Tulane 24th: What that means for US title race, CFP

The College Football Playoff Committee released a new batch of rankings on Tuesday, Nov. 18 with two weeks remaining in the regular season. As the first five teams were revealed, a familiar face from years past made its first appearance in the 2025 season: the Tulane Green Wave.

Tulane (8-2, 5-1 American) was listed as the No. 24 team in the standings. The Green Wave replaced South Florida as the top-ranked team in the AFC and, as one of the fifth-highest-ranked conference leaders, found themselves ranked No. 12 in the current mock bracket. At the moment, Tulane is scheduled to face Texas Tech in Lubbock in the first round of the College Football Playoff.

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“First of all, the American conference is a really good conference this year, a really important conference,” committee chairman Hunter Yurachek said in a media conference call Tuesday night. “Then we looked at Tulane’s schedule, the fact that they came out of their conference and played three power schools in Northwestern, Duke and Ole Miss, winning two of those three games, then a very impressive win at Memphis and a win against East Carolina, which is really coming in late. That’s really what the committee saw regarding Tulane as a team checking in at 24 this week.”

Tulane’s path to the playoffs becomes much clearer due to its 24th-place ranking on Tuesday night. The Green Wave now essentially controls its own destiny for its first appearance in the College Football Playoffs. One revelation from the standings is that Tulane, 8-2, is ahead of Sun Belt favorite James Madison at 9-1, meaning the Green Wave would likely seal a spot as one of the five highest-ranked conference champions simply by winning. Yurachek explained the reason for the Green Wave’s position over James Madison in the rankings.

“I think that was the biggest differentiator when we had some discussions about the six-team bracket, and James Madison was in that discussion this week, is really their strength of schedule,” Yurachek said. “They played a Power Four team and lost that game in Louisville 28-14. Then we looked at the strength of Tulane’s schedule, playing three Power Four teams. They lost to our No. 6 team in Ole Miss, but they beat Duke and Northwestern. They also had wins in the league, in the American, a very strong league, against Memphis and East Carolina. The loss against UTSA is a metric that’s on Tulane’s schedule. We have a lot of respect for James Madison and the team they are, especially because they are so good on the defensive side of the ball, but the strength of the schedule is probably the biggest differentiator between Tulane and James Madison right now.”

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The other revelation from Tulane’s rankings is that the Green Wave essentially controls its own destiny in creating and hosting the AFC Championship Game. The US title race is an interesting picture right now, with four teams with 1 loss in conference play: 6-1 Navy, 5-1 North Texas, 5-1 Tulane, and 5-1 East Carolina. The problem, which is quite common in conferences without divisions, is the lack of matchups between that group of 4 teams. North Texas defeated Navy 31-17 on Nov. 1 and Tulane beat East Carolina 26-19 on Oct. 9, and those are the only matchup combinations of these four teams all season.

Let’s say Tulane is tied 7-1 with Navy or North Texas in a two-team playoff (Tulane would get the advantage over ECU in a two-team playoff due to the head-to-head matchup). Lacking a head-to-head matchup, the American uses tiebreaker 10.5.3 which states: “If there is no head-to-head result and one of the tied teams was ranked in the latest available CFP Selection Committee rankings and does not lose in the final conference weekend of the regular season, it will be declared a participant in the championship game.” If another American team qualifies, tiebreaker 10.5.5 is used, which states: “If there is no head-to-head result and both tied teams are ranked in the latest available CFP Selection Committee rankings, the highest-ranked tied team that does not lose on the final weekend of the conference regular season will participate in the championship game.”

This same concept is used to determine the host site based on tiebreakers 10.9.2 and 10.9.5, so Tulane will likely host the American Championship if it simply wins, unless another 1-loss team like North Texas or Navy passes it in the CFP standings.

If Tulane is tied with any combination of Navy, North Texas and East Carolina at 7-1, multi-team tiebreakers will be implemented. Since there is no round-robin grouping between three or four of these teams, tiebreaker 10.6.3 comes into play, which states: “If the highest-ranked team of the tied teams in the latest available CFP Selection Committee rankings does not lose on the final conference weekend of the regular season, it will be declared a participant in the championship game.”

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Since the American puts so much emphasis on the CFP rankings in its process of determining the conference championship, Tulane is the eventual winner on Tuesday night. The Green Wave are ahead of North Texas, Navy and East Carolina in the standings and are therefore in prime position not only for a spot in the championship, but also to host should they win.

Tulane will be the favorite in its remaining two contests, traveling to Temple 5-5 on Nov. 22 before concluding against Charlotte 1-9 on Nov. 29. If it wins both, Tulane should qualify for its fourth straight AFC Championship, with Yulman Stadium as its backdrop for the third time in four years.

The committee’s full rankings are as follows: