AP College Football Poll 2014: Complete Week 12 Rankings Released

The madness continues. 

Each week of the college football season has begun to feel like a playoff, with major upsets and marquee matchups changing the top four on a consistent basis. At this point, one loss for a team could be catastrophic, while one big win could be exactly what a school needs to put some shine on its resume.

It's all up in the air. This past week, that was readily apparent. Let's take a look at how the Associated Press ranked these teams, along with Bleacher Report's official Top 25, and analyze the major outcomes after a wild weekend of football.    

Bleacher Report Poll

Rank	Team
1	Mississippi State
2	Florida State
3	Oregon
4	Alabama
5	TCU
6	Arizona State
7	Baylor
8	Ohio State
9	Auburn
10	Ole Miss
11	Nebraska
12	Kansas State
13	Michigan State
14	Notre Dame
15	Georgia
16	UCLA
17	Arizona
18	LSU
19	Duke
20	Clemson
21	Wisconsin
22	Marshall
23	Georgia Tech
24	Colorado State
25	Utah

Analysis

As they should, the top two teams in the nation remain unchanged, as Mississippi State and Florida State stayed unbeaten over the weekend. While Mississippi State will become a major discussion point if it loses on the road to Alabama next week—how far down the standings should the Bulldogs drop if they lose to one of the top teams in the country away from home?—for the moment the school deserves to be No. 1. 

But which teams deserve to be Nos. 3 and 4?  

While the AP voters made their decision this week, the playoff committee has yet to weigh in, and that's the real decisive factor. It's hard to imagine Oregon will be leapfrogged by any teams after a solid away win over Utah, though Alabama (win over LSU), TCU (win over Kansas State), Ohio State (win over Michigan State) and Arizona State (win over Notre Dame) all make strong cases.

Joe Robbins/Getty Images

Even Baylor kept its name in the running with a decisive victory over Oklahoma.

"We have to control what we can control," Bryce Petty told reporters after the Bears smoked the Sooners, 48-14. "If we go out and win these last three games, we put up a fight. But we have to win."

That's the mantra for most of the one-loss teams: Win out and you'll probably get your shot at the College Football Playoff.

That's no small task, of course. Alabama nearly learned that lesson the hard way against LSU Saturday night in an overtime thriller. SportsCenter on Twitter passed along the highlights of that contest:

More and more, it feels like a two-loss team could end up sneaking back into the Top Four. There are still many huge matchups left on the schedule, and that's before you consider the conference championships—many of those will be playoff games in their own right.

Of course, it could play out much cleaner than that. Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports certainly thinks it will:

That wouldn't be very much fun, would it? 

So far this year, we've had crazy upsets, head-scratching outcomes and, well, utter madness throughout. The end of the season may play out with a bit more stability and predictability, but that would be out of character for a year that has consistently defied expectations.