BREAKING NEWS: 5 talking points as College Football Playoff seedings released with two shock omissions.giang

The College Football Playoff seedings have now been released with Alabama set to miss out on the postseason after falling to the 13th seed and being the first team out.

The NCAA amended its postseason rules for the first time this season, expanding the playoffs from just four teams to 12 – giving schools more of an opportunity to compete for a national championship – with school’s now learning whether they’re in and who they’ll be coming up against.

The CFP selection committee released its final rankings on Sunday afternoon, with the 12-team bracket being confirmed with four schools given a first-round bye as the highest-ranked conference champions.

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Here, Mirror U.S. Sports provides everything you need to know about the bracket and the main talking points ahead of the first-round later this month.

Alabama misses out

Alabama had expected to been in the playoffs after being named as the 11 seed last week, looking likely to become the first-ever three-loss team to make the CFP. But shockingly, Bama was named as the 13th seed after Clemson defeated SMU to leapfrog them in the rankings, with the CFP awarding the latter the final place over Alabama.

College football fans and analysts didn’t think Kalen DeBoer’s men should still be in the hunt, with the head coach now likely to be under severe pressure after an embarrassing first season in charge.

Cam Ward’s college football season over

Cam Ward will now immediately turn his attentions to the NFL Draft with his college football career over. The Miami Hurricanes were named as the 14th seed and the second team out after Alabama.

Ward has been sensational in his senior season, making the brilliant move to transfer to Miami rather than going to the NFL Draft as he had first planned, with the quarterback putting in his best season of his career. He’ll now compete with Shedeur Sanders to be the first quarterback drafted, while being disappointed he could not further enhance his stocks in the postseason.

Smaller schools shown love

While Boise State and Arizona State were never even close of cracking the top four at any point this season, the two will be overjoyed to learn that they were placed in third and fourth, respectively. They will both be given bye’s to advance to the second round.

The playoff teams final rankings were not necessarily guaranteed to match the bracket seeds because of conference champions and byes, with Boise State and Arizona State especially being unclear on where they’d land. Some expected them to potentially be the lower seeds in the playoffs.

But the CFP has rewarded them hugely, with Ashton Jeanty hoping to cause further shocks this season after his incredible year with Boise. Arizona State meanwhile will lean on their impressive defense and wide receiver duo of Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel – both expected to be second-round draft picks.

Ohio State’s defeat to Michigan could prove vital

Ohio State has fallen all the way to the 8th seed, meaning they’ll just get one home game in the postseason but they’ll come up against the Tennessee Volunteers in what could be a brutal match-up.

The Buckeyes suffered a shock defeat to the struggling Michigan Wolverines in the final game of the regular season which proved hugely costly, missing out on the Big Ten Championship game while falling down furtherly in the playoff bracket. They’ll face number one seed Oregon should they defeat Tennessee, having a brutal road to the championship.

Texas avoids Georgia, Quinn Ewers hoping to rebuild stock

Texas has been defeated by Georgia twice already this season, really struggling in only those two games in what has been an otherwise impressive year for the Longhorns. But it won’t see the Bulldogs again this season unless they meet in the National Championship game.

Texas did not win a bye in the seedings, but was given the number five seed with them set to face the lowest team in the bracket in Clemson, before coming up against Arizona State in another game they’ll be favorited to win. It’s a nice slate of games for Quinn Ewers, too, who needs to put in some strong performances if he his to enter the NFL Draft, after struggling in recent weeks with fans asking to see Arch Manning.