College Football Playoff rankings preview: The top 4 paths for every team still alive

Conference championship weekend is upon us, and it’s shaping up to be one of the most compelling of the College Football Playoff era.

The Pac-12’s final championship game is essentially a CFP play-in game between Oregon and Washington . Texas is trying to win its first Big 12 title game since 2009 in its final year in the league, which would give the Longhorns a chance to make their first CFP. Michigan gets coach Jim Harbaugh back after a three-game absence for the Big Ten championship game against Iowa . Florida State is one win away from a 13-0 season, as is Georgia , which faces an Alabama team that needed an epic fourth-and-goal touchdown pass to beat Auburn and remain in the CFP mix itself. There’s still some great football ahead, and Tuesday night’s CFP rankings will set the stage for a high-stakes weekend.

This week’s rankings are the fifth of five in-season rankings, released each Tuesday through the end of November. They provide a window into the thinking of this year’s selection committee, an understanding of what it values and how it sees these top teams. As a reminder, it is an incomplete evaluation. But it’s all we’ve got for now. We’ll get the real thing in less than a week.

Here are the four most pressing questions heading into the last in-season rankings release.

Georgia: Beat Alabama in the SEC title game and it’s in, with a strong chance to earn the No. 1 seed again. Lose to the Tide, and the Bulldogs would stay in the mix Sunday morning. It’ll depend on how a non-conference-champion Georgia resume stacks up against other one-loss teams like Oregon and Texas. The Bulldogs would still have two top-15 wins (over Missouri and Ole Miss ) that could give them the edge.

Michigan: Beat Iowa in the Big Ten title game and the Wolverines are in, with a chance to land the No. 1 seed. We’ll see whether the selection committee slides them up to the top spot Tuesday on the strength of their win over Ohio State — a team the committee placed at No. 1 in its first couple of sets of rankings. If Michigan loses to Iowa, it’s likely out of the Playoff. Its nonconference schedule was weak, and its resume basically comes down to two games: Ohio State and Penn State . They’re great wins, but strength of schedule and other metrics could be a problem.

Washington/Oregon: Win and in. Either the Huskies will be 13-0 Pac-12 champions with a plethora of quality wins, or the Ducks will be 12-1 Pac-12 champions who beat every team on their schedule. The winner of the Pac-12 title game should make the field, regardless of results elsewhere. Oregon can’t survive a second loss, and it’s not clear whether the Huskies can sneak in as a one-loss non-champion. The selection committee hasn’t given Washington much credit for its schedule to date, keeping the Huskies ranked below all of the other P5 unbeatens until last week.

Florida State: Win and (should be) in. We’ll get into this in more detail below, but the four-team CFP was not designed to exclude a 13-0 Power 5 champion. If the Seminoles beat Louisville in the ACC title game, they should be in. They might be the fourth seed and/or ranked lower than a one-loss team, but they should be included in the field. With a loss to the Cardinals, FSU would be out. The Seminoles don’t have a strong enough resume to garner consideration as a one-loss non-champion, especially in light of the season-ending injury to quarterback Jordan Travis .

Texas: The Longhorns need to beat Oklahoma State in the Big 12 title game to have a chance, and they probably need help. If all four Power 5 unbeatens (Georgia, Michigan, Washington and Florida State) win, they’re going to get the four spots. Texas should root for the Wolverines and Seminoles to lose. A Georgia win over Alabama would knock the Crimson Tide out of the CFP mix, too, so even though the Longhorns want their Week 2 win over Bama to mean as much as possible, they’d rather clear out potential challengers. If Alabama and Texas both win and the fourth spot comes down to these two, will the head-to-head result hold? It should, right? But it’d be a difficult question for the committee to answer. Texas cannot survive a loss to the Cowboys .

Alabama: Win and (should be) in. The Crimson Tide would be one-loss SEC champions with the best win in the country, over the current No. 1 team in the CFP rankings. They should be in even if the other three Power 5 unbeatens (Michigan, Washington and FSU) all win. The interesting question would be what happens if those three unbeatens were to win along with Texas and Alabama. At that point, the committee would need to decide whether a win against Georgia on the eve of Selection Sunday is a strong enough indicator of recent form to put the Crimson Tide ahead of the team that handed them their only loss in September.

Ohio State: The Buckeyes snuck into the four-team field through the back door last year, but this season’s pool of teams is far deeper (and features teams with fewer losses). The Buckeyes have good wins over Penn State and Notre Dame , but they’ll need a lot of help to get back into the top four without playing in a championship game. Ohio State should root for Georgia to win, Michigan to win, Florida State to lose and Texas to lose. That amount of chaos could knock out enough contenders to put the Buckeyes back in.

Seminoles quarterback Tate Rodemaker made his first start this season against Florida , and it was a mixed bag. He struggled mightily early on but responded well, starting with a drive late in the second quarter that ended with the first of three Trey Benson rushing touchdowns. Rodemaker took a hard hit to the head in the fourth quarter but returned to help ice the game. As Florida State coach Mike Norvell said in his postgame on-field interview, these Seminoles “answer the bell whenever they get the opportunity.”

Questions about FSU’s defense resurfaced throughout Saturday night’s game, but the bigger question is what the committee thinks about this team without its leader and heartbeat. Obviously, the offense looked less potent without Jordan Travis, but the Seminoles won, and if they win again in the ACC title game, I can’t imagine the CFP would leave them out. I could see the committee seeding FSU lower because of the drop-off without Travis, but a full snub would be shocking. Still, I’d like to hear committee chair Boo Corrigan talk about what the committee members learned about FSU this week in Gainesville.

Technically, yes! But I am nowhere near as confident as whatever the Allstate CFP Predictor is:

As outlined above, the Buckeyes need quite a bit of help to get in, which is challenging with four unbeatens still alive and a handful of one-loss contenders still in the mix. And all of the other teams in the hunt are playing this weekend, though Ohio State is not.

To reiterate, Ohio State should root for Georgia to win, Michigan to win, Florida State to lose and Texas to lose. That would set up a top four of Georgia, Michigan, the Washington-Oregon winner and one open spot for the one-loss contenders to battle over. The key is to knock out contenders like Alabama and Texas to make space for Ohio State. A Michigan win would give the Buckeyes the best-looking loss of any remaining one-loss teams. But again ... that’s a lot of help needed to sneak in. The Buckeyes’ path is not nearly as simple as last year.

I’ll defer to my colleagues Stewart Mandel and Scott Dochterman for bowl assignments , but we’ll get more clarity regarding the teams that are likely to make up New Year’s Six bowl slots with Tuesday night’s rankings. Assuming they’re similar to last week’s, with Penn State ranked ahead of Ole Miss, and assuming the favorites win this weekend, it looks like the non-CFP bowls will include the Oregon-Washington loser, Alabama, Texas, Ohio State, Louisville, Penn State, Missouri and the highest-ranked Group of 5 champion (presumably the Tulane – SMU winner).

Per my colleagues, barring chaos that somehow gets the Buckeyes into a national semifinal game, Ohio State-Louisville should be the Orange Bowl matchup.

(Photo: Kevin C. Cox / )