College Football Rankings 2016: Week 12 Polls, Schedule and Standings Prediction

College football's hierarchy was thrown into a state of disarray in Week 11, as three of the Top Four teams and five of the Top Nine teams in the playoff rankings were upset on Saturday.  

Clemson, Michigan and Washington were the big losers from the weekend, though the fact that all three lost actually helps each team. Ohio State and Louisville head into huge Week 12 matchups against Michigan State and Houston, respectively, knowing they will likely be behind Alabama in the playoff standings. 

One team from the trio of losing teams last week will likely end up as the fourth team in the playoff standings, though everyone's position behind the Crimson Tide is as tenuous as it has ever been in 2016. 

Week 12 Top 25 Schedule

Date	Matchup	Predicted Winner
Thursday, Nov. 16	No. 3 Louisville at Houston	Louisville, 38-28
Friday, Nov. 17	UNLV at No. 22 Boise State	Boise State, 45-20
Friday, Nov. 17	Arkansas State at No. 25 Troy
Saturday, Nov. 18	No. 20 Washington State at No. 12 Colorado	Washington State, 31-27
Saturday, Nov. 18	Oregon at No. 11 Utah	Utah, 51-24
Saturday, Nov. 18	No. 13 Oklahoma State at TCU	TCU, 43-38
Saturday, Nov. 18	Maryland at No. 19 Nebraska	Nebraska, 27-16
Saturday, Nov. 18	No. 6 Wisconsin at Purdue	Wisconsin, 30-13
Saturday, Nov. 18	No. 2 Ohio State at Michigan State	Ohio State, 34-17
Saturday, Nov. 18	Texas-San Antonio at No. 23 Texas A&M	Texas A&M, 48-10
Saturday, Nov. 18	No. 21 Florida at No. 16 LSU	LSU, 20-10
Saturday, Nov. 18	No. 17 Florida State at Syracuse	Florida State, 33-7
Saturday, Nov. 18	Indiana at No. 4 Michigan	Michigan, 40-14
Saturday, Nov. 18	No. 5 Clemson at Wake Forest	Clemson, 24-6
Saturday, Nov. 18	Chattanooga at No. 1 Alabama	Alabama, 52-7
Saturday, Nov. 18	Alabama A&M at No. 18 Auburn	Auburn, 45-6
Saturday, Nov. 18	Arizona State at No. 7 Washington	Washington, 38-20
Saturday, Nov. 18	No. 8 Oklahoma at No. 10 West Virginia	West Virginia, 30-27
Saturday, Nov. 18	No. 9 Penn State at Rutgers	Penn State, 26-3
Saturday, Nov. 18	No. 15 USC at UCLA	USC, 34-20
Saturday, Nov. 18	Buffalo at No. 14 Western Michigan	Western Michigan, 40-17
Saturday, Nov. 18	No. 24 San Diego State at Wyoming	Wyoming, 27-24

With the regular season coming to an end next week, most top programs have set themselves up for easy victories. Alabama is ostensibly playing an exhibition game against Chattanooga to get ready for Auburn, which counters with its own game against Alabama A&M. 

The Tigers are coming off a loss against Georgia in which the offense had just 164 total yards, including 27 passing yards from quarterback Sean White. 

Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn said in a press conference after the ugly defeat that White is still the team's quarterback before noting that he's still not fully recovered from a shoulder injury. 

"Sean's been our quarterback, and he's done a good job up to this point," Malzahn said. "Obviously, he's not 100 percent. He hasn't been able to throw to his receivers for two weeks."

White will have one more week to get himself right, but Auburn can't afford to have a quarterback operating at less than 100 percent against Alabama on November 26, especially after how bad things turned out against Georgia. 

Clemson had been flirting with disaster most of the season. The defending ACC champions had narrow wins against Auburn, Troy, Louisville, North Carolina State and Florida State this season.

Auburn, Louisville and Florida State are all ranked and boast tremendous talent, so those slim margins of victory are excusable. But it has felt for a long time like something is off with the Tigers in 2016, and it finally bit them when Pittsburgh put up 43 points on them. 

Clemson offensive coordinator Jeff Scott described his team as a cat following Saturday's defeat. 

"Yeah, I think as a team we've been a cat with nine lives for a while," Scott told reporters. "It caught up with us today. You can't consistently turn the ball over and win in this league and again. We survived a few of those earlier in the year. They caught up with us today."

Wake Forest isn't a bad team and shouldn't be overlooked at home against Clemson. The Demon Deacons played Florida State tough before dropping a 17-6 game and held a lead after three quarters against Louisville before everything unraveled in the fourth quarter. 

This is Clemson's game to lose, but the Tigers have a lot of problems that need to be corrected if they want to be a national title threat. 

Looking at teams with a chance to capitalize on this newfound playoff opening, the Big 12 gets the spotlight on Saturday with a huge Top 10 matchup featuring Oklahoma traveling to West Virginia. 

West Virginia, in particular, would benefit from a win in this spot because it's taken this team a long time to garner the national respect it deserves.

Pete Fiutak of College Football News reminded everyone that the Mountaineers are not out of the national title picture:

After losing to Oklahoma State on October 29, West Virginia responded with wins over Kansas and Texas. Those aren't exactly marquee victories, but that will change this week with a win over Oklahoma. 

Per ESPN's Jake Trotter, West Virginia would also be exorcising a demon that has haunted the program since joining the Big 12 in 2012:

The Sooners are also desperate to prove that their run of seven consecutive wins is a product of them figuring things out after Ohio State ran them off the field and not a byproduct of playing seven unranked teams. 

The next two weeks against West Virginia and Oklahoma State will be exactly what Oklahoma needs to build its case with the playoff committee. 

This week's slate of games doesn't appear likely to shake up the standings dramatically, though the same was true last week. At this point in the season, with teams starting to feel fatigue setting in, the best will be able to separate themselves from the pack.