On Tuesday night, the first College Football Playoff rankings of the 2024 season dropped, and the LSU Tigers found themselves sitting at No. 15. Their Saturday night foes, the Alabama Crimson Tide, came in at No. 11, setting up a top-15 matchup in Death Valley.

The AP Poll is a good way to measure teams early in the season, but once we hit November and the College Football Playoff rankings drop, the AP Poll quickly losses most of it's importance.

The AP Poll is voted on by media members, who can be a bit biased with their rankings. The goal of the CFP rankings is to eliminate those biases and form the best rankings possible.

With the new 12-team playoffs, the four highest ranked conference champions rank as the top-four seeds and get a bye week, and then the highest ranked non-power conference champion also gets in, but doesn't receive a bye unless they are ranked higher than any of the power-four champions. The remaining seven highest ranked teams then fill out the rest of the bracket.

As it stands right now, LSU would likely be just outside of the playoffs, but they have a big game ahead of them against Alabama, and if they can win, they might just find themselves inside the bubble with the ability to control their own destiny with three winnable games left on the schedule.

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