Will the first College Football Playoff rankings of 12-team era favor Big Ten, SEC?

Tuesday night's College Football Playoff Top 25 rankings will surely be the most picked-apart first installment of a season since the CFP debuted in 2014. It's the committee's first time doing this with a real-life 12-team bracket in the offing.

It's also the committee's first set of rankings in the new era of superconferences, where the SEC and Big Ten are trying to position themselves as superior to everyone else. How much will the logo patch on a jersey shape the committee's opinion of a team?

"You can come from a conference that's got an awful lot of Top 25 teams, but not have played very many of them — and vice versa," ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said. "The focus is on individual teams, not conferences, and your resume stands on its own."

Behind the scenes, some administrators are concerned the Big Ten and SEC have raised pressure on the committee by suggesting their teams should be treated differently. Before finalizing the CFP's new six-year, $7.8 billion ESPN deal that begins in 2026, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti was already lobbying for a bigger field (14 or 16 teams) with three or more automatic berths for both his league and the SEC.

"By nature, (the committee) is not scientific. It's not based on any hardcore record," he said at Big Ten media days this summer. "... So, that's why I think if you look at it, being able to qualify more off your conference record makes more sense."

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey was miffed last December that the committee didn't include two SEC teams, Alabama and Georgia , in its four-team field. Sankey has not yet called for multiple automatic berths in a bigger field like Petitti but has indicated he'll watch the committee closely.

"There's a weight on the committee that's new. I want to see how the committee processes that," he said during the SEC's spring meetings. "And my encouragement is that this, 'Well, we have an undefeated team so they're in' is not the standard. It never was the standard."

The committee gave its first hint of how this season might look with its initial rankings of the 2023 season . The first 23 teams were ordered precisely by number of losses, and the first three undefeated teams, first six (out of seven) one-loss teams and first two-loss team were all current members of the Big Ten or SEC.

But bigger conferences also mean more unbalanced schedules and the discrepancy is already evident within both leagues. Georgia (7-1), which has faced 7-1 Texas , 6-2 Clemson and 6-2 Alabama, has played the third-toughest schedule nationally, according to The Athletic's Austin Mock . Whereas Tennessee (7-1), which has faced Alabama but no other currently ranked team, has the No. 59 schedule.

"I am curious about how much simply being in the superpower conferences might mean with how the committee is going to handle teams," said Brian Fremeau, creator of the FEI efficiency ratings . "The SEC and Big Ten rightfully are perceived to be the best conferences, but not everyone's resume to date would suggest they've necessarily played a gauntlet simply by being in those two conferences."

Two teams in particular figure to be early litmus tests for the committee: BYU and Indiana .

The 8-0 Cougars are No. 9 in the AP poll, lower than five one-loss teams from the Big Ten and SEC. But their resume includes a road win at 8-1 SMU and a home blowout of 7-2 Kansas State . The two best wins to date for Penn State , one of the one-loss teams ranked above BYU, were against 6-3 Illinois and at 5-4 Wisconsin .

The 9-0 Hoosiers, one spot above BYU in the AP poll, have a different profile entirely. Their schedule strength is 82nd, but they've won each of their games by at least 14 points, with an average victory margin of 47-14.

"If you put a different helmet on them," said Fremeau of Indiana, "there's no question they would be in the (AP) top five at this point."

One ACC team to keep an eye on farther down the list: Louisville . The Cardinals, ranked No. 25 in the AP poll after knocking off Clemson, already have three losses, but they've also played four current Top 25 teams, two of them, Notre Dame and Miami , in the top 10. Might they jump above some two-loss teams?

Two former committee members, Miami AD Dan Radakovich and Kansas State AD Gene Taylor, said the rankings process should be no different than before. While the conferences can submit materials to a designated point person (not from their own league) on the committee, they said the members are immune to conference lobbying efforts.

"I really trust the committee, because I've been on it and that never comes into play," said Taylor. "I know the committee does not worry about what conference. ... It's just like, is this team good enough to be in the Top 25? Is it good enough to be No. 10? And that's all they focus on."

The commissioners agreed to table the expansion/automatic bids discussion until after this year's Playoff, but many expect Petitti and possibly Sankey to attempt to formalize special treatment for the leagues if the committee doesn't do it for them.

"We haven't had any discussion about format in a long period of time," said Phillips. "... When you look at championships in general, there are no predetermined outcomes. They're not artificially put together. They're structured based on performance during that particular season. I think the general public believes that. It's how all championships are basically run."

? College Football Playoff Bubble Watch

As longtime viewers of the Tuesday night rankings shows know well, the committee can move teams around each week however they see fit. The only show that truly matters is the last one on Dec. 8.

But with so much change hitting at once this season, Tuesday's rankings will serve as the first window into how they'll assemble a 12-team field. There will invariably be controversy, regardless of which conference your team resides in.

"At the end of the day, we (the ACC) have got to win football games as a league. So does the Big 12," said Radakovich. "I don't buy the whole cannibalism piece within some of the other leagues, but we'll see how the committee people look at it."

(Photo: Adam Cairns / Columbus Dispatch / USA Today via Imagn Images)