Texas A&M football fans have been dissatisfied with the College Football Playoff committee's questionable rankings since they first came out this season. The Aggies spent the majority of the year with either the first or second-ranked Strength of Record (in other words, resume) in the country, yet were sitting at third in the rankings. After the loss to Texas, A&M fell to the 3-5 range (with most having them at three or four), but the committee moved them down to 7th.
Mike Elko spoke to the media yesterday for the first time since the committee released those rankings, and he was asked about where the Aggies land. In his response, he gave voice to the frustrations that Texas A&M fans are feeling with the committee's seemingly-arbitrary decisions.
Mike Elko calls out CFP Committee, giving voice to Aggie fans' frustrations
You can see his full response in the post below:
Texas A&M coach Mike Elko pushed back against the latest College Football Playoff rankings, along with the notion that the Aggies’ schedule was weak: “I think we are all screaming for some clarity … of what exactly is the criteria that we are utilizing to break ties.” pic.twitter.com/oquPtiaCD2
— Carter Karels (@CarterKarels) December 3, 2025
"As a football coach, put a ball down, let's go play, it doesn't matter— we'll play anyone, anywhere, it is what it is. We're going to be in the playoffs, we're going to compete for a national championship."
But that wasn't all that Elko had to say— not by a long shot. Even though he made it clear that his team was unafraid and ready to take advantage of this opportunity, he still had to let the CFP committee know just how unbelievably wacky their approach to the rankings is.
"From a CEO standpoint, I think we are all screaming for some clarity... What exactly is the criteria we are using to break ties? I don't know that anybody has a really firm understanding of what that actually is. For us to have a higher strength of record and strength of schedule than a lot of the teams that share the same record as us— I don't understand [why the Aggies are ranked lower].
If that's not a clear shot across the bow of the committee, I don't know what is. They promised at the beginning of the year to bring in SOR metrics to help them decide between teams, but thus far, they have certainly not abided by any accepted measurement thereof. The point, obviously, is that you can say a metric measures SOS or SOR, but if the methodology is flawed— and the shocking outlier nature of the committee's SOS results suggest that it is— then it doesn't actually measure that thing.
Something has to change with how these rankings are calculated. It's becoming clearer that it's actually mostly a formula with the committee making very slight adjustments to teams' placement every week, but the formula is ridiculous. I don't think it's likely, but if it's going to happen, it will be because people like coach Elko continue to press the issue.