[h=2]Your guide to how the College Football Playoff committee votes[/h]<time datetime="1414429761" style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: middle;">119 minutes ago</time>
<section class="boltbody" data-url="/Bolt/Your-guide-to-how-the-College-Football-Playoff-committee-votes-32395612" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">A disparate group of writers and coaches fill out their ballots and send them in to whoever's organizing the poll. Each ballot is tallied and the cumulative result is your top 25. That's how college football standings have worked since time immemorial, but it's not how the College Football Playoff committee will select the top 25 that it releases on Tuesday night. Their process is far more complicated.
OK, so how does it work?
The voting process has five steps, but some of those steps will need to be repeated several times before the committee arrives at its top 25.
To start, the 12 committee members -- remember, Archie Manning, committee member No. 13 will not be replaced this season -- will independently rank the top 25 teams, as they see it. To make it to the next step of the process, teams need votes from three or more of the 12 committee members. This will almost certainly leave them with more than 25 teams to consider during the next step.
Selecting the top three
From the group of teams identified in the first step of the voting process, each committee member will provide a list of the six best teams, in no particular order. After all 12 sets of nominations are tallied, the six teams with the most votes will advance to the next step. (Here's something that might confuse you: if a team doesn't make this top six, it's impossible for it to be ranked in the top three, but there's still a chance that it could end up ranked No. 4. More on this later.)
The members will then rank that group of six teams from first to sixth. A first place vote is worth one point, a second place vote is worth two points, a third place vote is worth three points, and so on. The three teams with the fewest points will be the first three teams in the playoff.
The last team in
This is where things get a little weird, so keep up. After deciding on the top three, the committee revisits that top-25-or-so group established in step one, less the teams identified as the top six. It's important to note that this excludes the three teams selected for the top six but not picked for the top the top three. I told you it was going to get weird.
From this field (initial pool of top 25 or so teams, minus the top six), each committee member lists his/her six best teams, again in no particular order. The three teams receiving the most nominations will then be added to the the three teams selected for the initial top six but excluded from the top three. From this new group of six, the committee members will decide spots four through six just as they decided spots one through three. A first place vote is worth one point, a second place vote is worth two points, a third place vote is worth three points, and so on. The three teams of the six with the fewest points will be ranked No. 4 through No. 6. And, of course, the team that emerges from this step ranked No. 4 and would be the last team in the College Football Playoff. (See? This is how, in theory, you could miss the initial top six and still end up in the top four.)
The rest of the field
To fill out spots seven through 25, the committee members will repeat theses steps until all 25 teams are ranked. If this all seems just a little more complicated than it probably needs to be, that's because it is.
</section>
<section class="boltbody" data-url="/Bolt/Your-guide-to-how-the-College-Football-Playoff-committee-votes-32395612" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">A disparate group of writers and coaches fill out their ballots and send them in to whoever's organizing the poll. Each ballot is tallied and the cumulative result is your top 25. That's how college football standings have worked since time immemorial, but it's not how the College Football Playoff committee will select the top 25 that it releases on Tuesday night. Their process is far more complicated.
OK, so how does it work?
The voting process has five steps, but some of those steps will need to be repeated several times before the committee arrives at its top 25.
To start, the 12 committee members -- remember, Archie Manning, committee member No. 13 will not be replaced this season -- will independently rank the top 25 teams, as they see it. To make it to the next step of the process, teams need votes from three or more of the 12 committee members. This will almost certainly leave them with more than 25 teams to consider during the next step.
Selecting the top three
From the group of teams identified in the first step of the voting process, each committee member will provide a list of the six best teams, in no particular order. After all 12 sets of nominations are tallied, the six teams with the most votes will advance to the next step. (Here's something that might confuse you: if a team doesn't make this top six, it's impossible for it to be ranked in the top three, but there's still a chance that it could end up ranked No. 4. More on this later.)
The members will then rank that group of six teams from first to sixth. A first place vote is worth one point, a second place vote is worth two points, a third place vote is worth three points, and so on. The three teams with the fewest points will be the first three teams in the playoff.
The last team in
This is where things get a little weird, so keep up. After deciding on the top three, the committee revisits that top-25-or-so group established in step one, less the teams identified as the top six. It's important to note that this excludes the three teams selected for the top six but not picked for the top the top three. I told you it was going to get weird.
From this field (initial pool of top 25 or so teams, minus the top six), each committee member lists his/her six best teams, again in no particular order. The three teams receiving the most nominations will then be added to the the three teams selected for the initial top six but excluded from the top three. From this new group of six, the committee members will decide spots four through six just as they decided spots one through three. A first place vote is worth one point, a second place vote is worth two points, a third place vote is worth three points, and so on. The three teams of the six with the fewest points will be ranked No. 4 through No. 6. And, of course, the team that emerges from this step ranked No. 4 and would be the last team in the College Football Playoff. (See? This is how, in theory, you could miss the initial top six and still end up in the top four.)
The rest of the field
To fill out spots seven through 25, the committee members will repeat theses steps until all 25 teams are ranked. If this all seems just a little more complicated than it probably needs to be, that's because it is.
</section>
