Virginia in CFP bracket despite No. 14 rank

Billy Heyen

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Why Virginia is in College Football Playoff bracket even with No. 14 ranking image

It's a special football season so far for the Virginia Cavaliers. 

And on Tuesday night, they got some cool recognition in the initial College Football Playoff rankings, despite a bit of numeric confusion.

UVA finds itself on the initial CFP bracket.

It's a 12-team field, but the Cavaliers are ranked No. 14.

Here's how that works:

Virginia in CFP despite No. 14 rank?

The key for Virginia is the automatic qualifier system for the College Football Playoff.

The top-five highest ranked conference champions make it in as auto qualifiers.

The ACC in the current rankings has Virginia as the fourth-highest conference leader. There are no conference champions yet, but for the sake of the projected bracket, they use the team leading each league. 

The Cavaliers haven't lost yet in conference play, so they're considered the leader.

The reality is that by the end of the season, the ACC winner will probably be ranked in the top-12 anyway. 

It's just a bit jumbled at the moment after losses over the weekend by Georgia Tech and by Miami.

So for now, Virginia projects to be in the CFP field. There's a lot of time that that could still change.

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Contributing Writer