5 Things We Learned from College Football Playoff Committee's Week 12 Rankings

The selection committee's third release of its rankings proved to be its most interesting and revealing. There is strong indication that the members indeed are evaluating the teams freshly each week and not following the poll practice where teams only slide up and down out of fixed positions from the previous week.

That's good. It makes for an intriguing final month of the season for the fewer than a dozen contenders still remaining in the playoff hunt. 

Here are the five things that immediately come to mind based on the committee's new rankings.

SEC Is Looking at One Bid

Forget two bids in the four-team field. The SEC will need to hang on to its one bid, as a two-loss conference champion may very well be shut out of the playoff. Despite being the top-ranked team for three weeks in a row, Mississippi State may be finished with just one loss if it does not win the SEC West because of a weak nonconference schedule.

Big Ten Is in Big Trouble

Ohio State's big win over Michigan State is good for the Buckeyes but very bad for their conference. OSU will not be able to play its way into the playoff without help, as the committee has very little regard for the Big Ten. The Buckeyes' best remaining opponent could be Nebraska—if they meet in the B1G title game—and the Huskers are ranked only 16th despite having just one loss.

TCU Shouldn't Get Too Comfortable

While the Horned Frogs made a celebrated jump into the Top Four this week, this stay is by no means permanent. Baylor still has a chance to get past TCU, as it has better opponents coming up, including the regular-season finale against Kansas State.

Since the two teams share the same foes in nine of their 11 games against FBS opponents, TCU should root hard for Minnesota, as its victory over the now-ranked Gophers is a far better scalp than Baylor's win over Buffalo.

Committee Is Sending a Message About Schedule

That Baylor is in its current predicament owes a great deal to its awful nonconference schedule. Conversely, that UCLA is ranked 11th can be traced to its decision to play two Power Five opponents in its three out-of-conference games. A third example is Notre Dame, where we learned that while it's good to schedule tough opponents, you'll need to beat them to get credit.

Where's Group of Five?

For a second consecutive week, the committee did not bother to put a Group of Five team in the rankings, leaving the access bowl picture very murky. But with the introduction of Minnesota at No. 25, one must wonder if leaving Marshall out at this point makes sense. As a direct comparison, the Herd performed better than the Gophers in beating mutual opponent Middle Tennessee at home. Marshall won by 25 (49-24), whereas Minnesota won by 11 (35-24).

Explanation of Rankings

CFP Rank	Team	BCS	B/R Mock	AP	Coaches
1`	Mississippi State	1	1	1	1
2	Oregon	4	3	3	4
3	Florida State	2	2	2	2
4	TCU	5	5	5	5
5	Alabama	3	4	4	3
6	Arizona State	6	6	7	8
7	Baylor	7	7	6	6
8	Ohio State	10	8	8	7
9	Auburn	8	9	9	9
10	Ole Miss	9	10	10	10
11	UCLA	12	12	14	15
12	Michigan State	13	14	12	12
13	Kansas State	14	13	13	13
14	Arizona	19	15	17	18
15	Georgia	15	18	16	14
16	Nebraska	11	11	11	11
17	LSU	17	17	20	20
18	Notre Dame	16	16	15	16
19	Clemson	18	19	18	17
20	Wisconsin	22	22	22	22
21	Duke	20	20	19	19
22	Georgia Tech	25	21	24	23
23	Utah	NR	24	25	28
24	Texas A&M	23	23	27	30
25	Minnesota	NR	31	30	27
NR	Marshall	21	25	21	21
NR	Colorado State	24	30	23	25

BCS rankings are a simulation of the BCS formula used from 2004-2013 with two exceptions: The AP poll is used in place of the Harris Poll, and Sagarin and Massey rankings are their native systems instead of the non-MOV version used for the BCS.

CFP mock rankings are published weekly at Bleacher Report, with components including polls, computers, strength of schedule and conference championships. The full rankings are here.

Follow on Twitter @ThePlayoffGuru