NCAA Football Rankings 2014: Full List of Week 12 College Standings and Polls

Calamity swept through the NCAA football Week 12 rankings and polls.

Everything after the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Florida State Seminoles is an absolute disaster as things hit the fast lane toward the inaugural College Football Playoff.

After the pair of undefeated powerhouses at the top, eight one-loss teams from the power conferences continue to jockey for position in a number of different polls and in the minds of the CFP committee. Speaking of conferences, how some do business and the overall quality top to bottom is playing a major role in the CFP, too.

In a season that has been anything but predictable or calm, it is only fitting that the polls are a mess. Enjoy the chaos, because this was the ultimate goal of the four-team CFP in the first place.

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

Developments to Watch Moving Forward

Big Ten Eliminated From CFP?

The Ohio State Buckeyes had to go and ruin everything.

In a contest against the dominant then-No. 8 Michigan State Spartans, a team that had only lost to Oregon and seemed bound to make the playoff, the Buckeyes pulled a 49-37 win out of their hat to throw the committee for a loop.

That contest saw upstart Buckeyes quarterback J.T. Barrett throw for 300 yards and a trio of scores while adding another 86 yards and two scores on the ground. As ESPN Stats & Info points out, the Buckeyes offense has slowly morphed into one of the nation's best attacks under the guidance of the freshman:

But keep in mind that if a one-loss Ohio State team stays that way, how in the world is the CFP committee supposed to take on a team that lost to unranked Virginia Tech? Those Hokies are 4-5 and in seventh place in the ACC Coastal division.

Bill Rabinowitz of the Columbus Dispatch describes the convoluted mess:

With winnable contests against Indiana and Michigan on deck, the CFP better hope that a team such as Wisconsin comes along and upends the Buckeyes.

If not, well, that would fit in with the wild season to date quite well.

Big 12 Causing Problems

Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press

Thanks to the lack of a proper conference title game, the Big 12 may be the biggest wild card of all when it comes to the CFP.

At this very moment, Baylor and TCU are tied at 8-1 atop the conference.

The programs got there in impressive fashion, too. Baylor absolutely blew away Oklahoma in Norman last week, 48-14, while TCU solved the riddle that was Kansas State's elite defense with a 41-20 thumping of the Wildcats later that night.

As Stewart Mandel of FoxSports.com points out, nobody has a clue what will happen with the CFP if the Bears and Horned Frogs both reach 11-1:

Mandel goes on to explain that the CFP committee is in no way bogged down by the rules that govern the Big 12:

"

The Big 12 uses head-to-head results as its tiebreaker in determining the league’s automatic berth in one of the New Year’s Six bowls, but the committee is not obligated to follow that protocol when producing the order of its final rankings. Head-to-head is one of the factors it’s supposed to consider -- but so are conference championships and overall body of work.

"

TCU has a cupcake walk to 11-1, too. Kansas, Texas and Iowa State all have fewer than five wins. Minus a hookup with Kansas State, the Bears have a relatively easy walk toward 11 wins as well.

Should both get to the doomsday point, a precedent for all future editions of the CFP may be set. Don't blink when it comes to the Big 12 the rest of the season.

SEC's Doomsday Scenario

A few weeks back, there were rumblings concerning just how many teams the SEC could sneak into the postseason. 

Any general fan could have poked holes in the question, though—the SEC is so great and beats itself up so much that there is an outside chance only one team sneaks into the fray.

Or none at all.

Look at it this way. The SEC East is pretty much a non-factor with only one-loss Missouri at the top of the standings. The SEC West is an absolute mess with Ole Miss and Auburn at two losses apiece.

Next weekend, Alabama is in serious danger of picking up its second loss in a clash with Mississippi State. But the Bulldogs could go down at a very bad time of year, too. Kyle Tucker of The Courier-Journal puts it best:

Then again, Adam Beasley of The Miami Herald believes that the Bulldogs are still a surefire CFP team even if they do lose to Alabama:

"Absolutely," Bulldogs coach Dan Mullen said, per ESPN.com's Alex Scarborough. "Bigtime game this week. This is what you play for. That’s what we want our program to be like, competing in these big games late in the season."

But keep in mind that the major showdown is not the end of the season. Quite the contrary—the Bulldogs, losers or not, will need to play Ole Miss to close the season. The Crimson Tide, potentially with just one loss, will need to overcome Auburn.

If the dominoes fall in the right manner, no SEC team will make the CFP.

Now that is an upset.

Stats and information via ESPN.com unless otherwise specified. AP Poll can be viewed at CollegeFootball.AP.org. Amway Poll can be viewed at USAToday.com. B/R Poll can be viewed at BleacherReport.com.