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What if we had a 5+3 instead of the 5+7?

Same assumptions as above:

• Georgia, SEC Champion 
• Ohio State, B1G Champion 
• Florida State, ACC Champion 
• Utah, B12 Champion 
• Oregon
• Texas
• Alabama 
• Boise State, MWC Champion 

First Round:

• Boise State at Georgia 
• Alabama at Ohio State 
• Texas at Florida State 
• Oregon at Utah

Semi-Finals:

• Georgia/Boise vs Utah/Oregon 
• Ohio State/Bama vs Texas/FSU

League mix is:
SEC, 3:

• Georgia, #1 seed
• Texas, #6 seed
• Bama, #7 seed

B1G, 2:

• Ohio State, #2 seed
• Oregon, #5 seed

ACC, 1:

• FSU, #3 seed

B12, 1:

• Utah, #4 seed

MWC, 1:

• Boise State, #8 seed

Best teams left out would be:

• #6 Ole Miss
• #7 Notre Dame
• #8 Penn State
• #9 Michigan 

The four teams thus excluded are:

• The fourth best team in the SEC
• The third and fourth best teams in the B1G
• Notre Dame 

ND has been stuck at #7 for 88 years. 

As always: SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and, along those same lines, these projections aren't intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the year. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather to date.
Here are the full rankings:
Team SP+ Off. SP+ Def. SP+ ST SP+
1. Georgia 34.2 46.2 (3) 12.0 (5) 0.7 (4)
2. Ohio St. 30.8 35.7 (25) 4.9 (2) 0.5 (20)
3. Oregon 29.0 47.1 (1) 18.1 (15) -0.2 (85)
4. Alabama 27.8 42.7 (7) 14.9 (8) 0.7 (2)
5. Texas 27.7 44.4 (4) 16.8 (12) 0.5 (17)
6. Penn St. 26.1 35.8 (24) 9.7 (4) 0.4 (28)
7. Michigan 25.0 31.9 (41) 6.9 (3) 0.6 (7)
8. Ole Miss 24.7 42.9 (6) 18.3 (16) 0.5 (26)
9. Notre Dame 23.4 39.0 (10) 15.6 (9) 0.2 (53)
10. LSU 23.1 46.3 (2) 23.2 (38) -0.1 (83)
11. Missouri 22.2 40.7 (8) 18.5 (19) 0.3 (45)
12. Florida St. 19.9 36.2 (21) 16.2 (10) 0.6 (8)
13. Oklahoma 19.8 37.1 (17) 17.3 (13) -0.3 (95)
14. Texas A&M 19.2 38.2 (11) 19.0 (24) 0.0 (73)
15. Tennessee 19.2 37.7 (14) 18.6 (20) 0.2 (52)
16. Clemson 18.8 36.5 (19) 17.7 (14) 0.1 (66)
17. Kansas St. 16.4 36.3 (20) 19.9 (28) -0.3 (91)
18. Utah 15.8 32.5 (37) 16.7 (11) 0.4 (34)
19. Miami 15.5 37.3 (16) 21.9 (34) 0.7 (3)
20. Oklahoma St. 14.0 37.9 (12) 23.9 (42) 0.3 (42)
21. USC 13.9 44.4 (5) 30.5 (83) -0.4 (100)
22. Kentucky 13.8 34.4 (28) 20.6 (31) 0.4 (39)
23. Florida 13.2 36.9 (18) 23.7 (41) 0.6 (9)
24. Iowa 13.2 17.9 (114) 4.7 (1) 0.4 (30)
25. Auburn 13.1 32.3 (38) 19.2 (25) 0.5 (27)
26. Wisconsin 12.9 25.1 (77) 12.2 (7) 0.4 (29)
27. SMU 12.7 35.9 (22) 23.3 (39) -0.4 (99)
28. Arizona 12.4 37.9 (13) 25.6 (50) 0.0 (79)
29. NC St. 12.1 30.5 (53) 18.4 (18) 0.6 (15)
30. Iowa St. 11.5 29.8 (61) 18.3 (17) 0.4 (37)
31. Louisville 11.3 30.7 (49) 19.4 (27) 0.1 (64)
32. Washington 10.3 34.8 (26) 24.5 (44) 0.3 (47)
33. Kansas 9.7 37.7 (15) 28.0 (67) 0.1 (60)
34. W. Virginia 9.7 35.8 (23) 26.1 (54) 0.2 (54)
35. S. Carolina 9.5 30.0 (59) 20.5 (30) 0.6 (12)
36. Va. Tech 9.4 31.3 (43) 21.9 (35) 0.6 (14)
37. UCLA 8.8 30.3 (54) 21.5 (33) -0.5 (109)
38. TCU 8.7 33.3 (30) 24.6 (46) -0.1 (81)
39. Boise St. 7.9 32.6 (36) 24.8 (47) 0.5 (23)
40. N. Carolina 7.9 34.1 (29) 26.3 (55) 0.3 (46)
41. Texas Tech 7.4 31.9 (40) 24.5 (45) 0.4 (31)
42. Nebraska 7.4 19.4 (106) 12.0 (6) -0.5 (106)

What @Cincydawg is comparing here is the 2024 preseason AP Poll to the first ever AP Poll from October 19, 1936.  Note that they didn't do a preseason poll back then  and the first poll of 1936 wasn't until mid-October so all the teams had already played 3-5 games.  

Back then there were only 20 rather than 25 teams included in the poll so the above list is half of them, the others were:

• #11 Duquesne
• #12 St. Mary's
• #13 LSU
• #14 aTm
• #15 Nebraska
• #16 Fordham
• #17 Holy Cross
• #18 Tulane (which was then in the SEC)
• #19 SMU 
• #20 Marquette

Minnesota of the Big Ten won the inaugural AP NC with LSU of the SEC finishing second.  

In the final poll of 1936 fully half of the ranked teams (10 of 20) were independents.  The other half were:
SEC, 3:

• #2 LSU
• #4 Bama
• #17 Tennessee

BigTen, 2:

• #1 Minnesota
• #7 Northwestern

Southwest, 2:

• #16 TCU
• #18 Arkansas

Pacific Coast (forerunner to Pac8/10/12), 1:

• #5  Washington

Big 6, 1:

• #9  Nebraska

Southern (forerunner to ACC), 1:

• #11 Duke

As always: SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and, along those same lines, these projections aren't intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the year. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather to date.
Here are the full rankings:
Team SP+ Off. SP+ Def. SP+ ST SP+
1. Georgia 34.2 46.2 (3) 12.0 (5) 0.7 (4)
2. Ohio St. 30.8 35.7 (25) 4.9 (2) 0.5 (20)
3. Oregon 29.0 47.1 (1) 18.1 (15) -0.2 (85)
4. Alabama 27.8 42.7 (7) 14.9 (8) 0.7 (2)
5. Texas 27.7 44.4 (4) 16.8 (12) 0.5 (17)
6. Penn St. 26.1 35.8 (24) 9.7 (4) 0.4 (28)
7. Michigan 25.0 31.9 (41) 6.9 (3) 0.6 (7)
8. Ole Miss 24.7 42.9 (6) 18.3 (16) 0.5 (26)
9. Notre Dame 23.4 39.0 (10) 15.6 (9) 0.2 (53)
10. LSU 23.1 46.3 (2) 23.2 (38) -0.1 (83)
11. Missouri 22.2 40.7 (8) 18.5 (19) 0.3 (45)

One thing nice about SP+ and what stands out to me here is that they show the "score" for each team rather than just a ranking.  We tend to think of rankings as being absolute and uniform, ie, Georgia is one spot ahead of Ohio State and Ohio State is one spot ahead of Oregon but that isn't really the case.  Sometimes #1 and #2 are a near-tie and there is a huge gap before #3.  Other times, there is a huge gap between #1 and #2 then #2 is close to #3.  

In this case note that #1 UGA's score is 34.2.  That is 3.4 better than #2 tOSU's 30.8.  #2 Ohio State is closer to #3 Oregon, #4 Bama, and #5 Texas than they are to #1 UGA.  In fact, #6 PSU is almost as close to #2 tOSU as #2 tOSU is to #1 UGA.  

So I see this ranking as:

• Georgia
• tOSU/ORE, Bama, TX
• PSU, M, Ole Miss
• ND, LSU, Mizzou