College Football Rankings 2014: Week 12 AP and Amway Standings Revealed

Step right up and state your case for this year's College Football Playoff. One-loss teams will be considered. Heck, before everything is done and dusted, two-loss teams might be considered, too.

Strength of schedule? You'll need that. Marquee wins? Vital. Head-to-head matchups? They matter, until they don't. Passing the eye test? We're still trying to figure out what the parameters of that test are. 

But come forward, college football teams, and bring forth your resumes. While we have to wait a few days until the playoff committee unveils its rankings, the Associated Press and Amway Coaches polls are out for this week. Let's take a look at each below, along with Bleacher Report's official Top 25, and analyze the weekend that was.

AP Poll

Coaches Poll

Analysis

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You really don't want to be the No. 3 team in the country this season. At some point this year, Oregon, Oklahoma, Alabama, Ole Miss, Baylor and Auburn have been in that position in one poll or another, and all have lost.

This week it was Auburn, dropping a heartbreaker to Texas A&M, where—please excuse the cliche—the magic seemed to run out for War Eagle. 

"We just didn't get it done when we usually do," Auburn coach Gus Malzahn told Brandon Marcello of AL.com after the team's 41-38 loss to Texas A&M that included two Tigers fumbles in the last three minutes of the game.

That's perhaps the difference between reaching the playoff and watching it at home—uncharacteristic fumbles at the worst possible moment against a team you're supposed to beat. But that's been this season in a nutshell.

That finish—along with several other key results over the weekend—has left the quest for the playoff in upheaval. Sort of like it was in upheaval last week. And the week before that. And the week before... Well, you get the point. 

Mississippi State and Florida State will remain atop the rankings until they slip up, which could be coming this week for the Bulldogs when they face Alabama. Speaking of Alabama, it leads a contingent of one-loss teams that will be screaming their playoff qualifications to anyone who will listen, including Oregon, TCU, Arizona State, Ohio State and Baylor. 

It's amazing to think we had anything but a four-team playoff for all these years. How compelling has this season been?

And how compelling is it yet to be? This week alone, Mississippi State faces Alabama, Auburn faces Georgia and Nebraska takes on Wisconsin.

Sure, it's far from a week that saw Auburn lose, Alabama barely survive LSU, Ohio State knock off Michigan State, TCU thwart Kansas State and Arizona State eliminate Notre Dame from the playoff picture, but that Mississippi State versus Alabama game alone is worth the price of admission.

It's also potentially worth a ticket to the SEC Championship. And in the muddled SEC West, that ticket is an SEC team's best shot at reaching the playoff. Everything else will be left up to the playoff committee to sort through. 

Given the past few weeks, there is going to be a lot of sorting to be done. We're amid the madness now, folks, but the best is yet to come.