CFP Rankings will start on Tuesday 11/2 and be announced every Tuesday between 7 and 8 PM Eastern, except on 11/9, when they will be announced between the two games of the State Farm Champions Classic basketball event; the final rankings will be on Sunday 12/5, with the four playoff teams announced around 12:30 PM and the rest around 3 PM.

THE CFP RANKING PROCESS - the "quick" version
1. There are 13 members of the CFP committee. Most of them are associated with one or two schools, listed in parentheses; these are called their "recused" schools, and normally, they cannot vote for them.
Iowa AD Gary Barta (Iowa)
Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart (Kentucky)
Kansas State AD Gene Taylor (Kansas State)
Colorado AD Rick George (Colorado)
North Carolina State AD Boo Coorigan (North Carolina State)
Wyoming AD Tom Burman (Wyoming)
Georgia State AD Charlie Cobb (Georgia State; Ohio (his son Harrison is a student there))
Virginia Union VP for Athletics Joe Taylor
Arizona State professor Paola Boivin (Arizona State)
Will Shields (Nebraska All-American)
Tyrone Willingham (former Stanford/Notre Dame/Washington head coach) (Stanford)
John Urschel (Penn State All-American)
Rod West (former Notre Dame player) (Notre Dame)

2. Each committee member lists 30 teams, other than ones for which they are recused. Each team on at least three lists, or on at least two lists and is recused by at least one member, is put in the "Eligible List"; only these teams can be ranked.

3. In each of the first three "ranking rounds" (to rank the top 9 teams), each committee member chooses six teams on the Eligible List; the teams chosen by the most members are moved to the "Ranking Pool" until it has six teams. (In the first round, six teams are moved; in the second and third rounds, there are already three teams there, so three teams are moved.) If there is a tie for the last spot, the committee votes to decide which team(s) advance. If a team on anyone's recusals is one vote short of getting into a tie for the last spot, it is considered to have one additional vote.

4. In each of the first three ranking rounds, each committee member that does not have a recused team in the Ranking Pool ranks the teams in the pool from 1 to 6. The top three teams are given CFP rankings. (For example, the top three teams in the first round's vote are the #1, #2, and #3 ranked teams.) The remaining three teams remain in the Ranking Pool for the next round.

5. In the final four ranking rounds, repeat (3) and (4), except that each member chooses eight teams instead of six, the Ranking Pool is filled to eight teams, and four teams per round are ranked.

There are two special rules for the final rankings, which take place the day after the last conference championship games are played:

1. If no champions of the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, or Sun Belt conferences are in the final top 25, the committee votes to select one as an "unofficial" #26 team to receive the non-Power 5 CFP bowl bid.

2. If Navy wins the American conference championship, another vote is taken after the Army-Navy game to determine if Navy gets the non-Power 5 CFP bowl bid.