College Football Playoff rankings 2016: Seven burning questions

The Sports Xchange's Adam Jacobi answers seven burning questions regarding the College Football Playoff rankings.

1. How much leeway will the currently undefeated teams get?

Obviously, if current trends hold and the undefeated conference champions stay undefeated, it'll be Alabama, Clemson, Michigan and Washington heading to the playoffs -- we'll get to Texas A&M at No. 4 in a second. But the real question becomes what happens if any of those teams lose, either in the regular season or in their conference championships.

Alabama is probably the safest in its quest to return to the College Football Playoff, which almost seems a little unfair considering it's the least likely to pick up a loss between here and December. So it goes. Clemson's resume is strong and its ACC Atlantic division title is all but locked up; a regular season loss probably knocks the Tigers out of the top four in the immediate aftermath, but an ACC title welcomes them right back in. We truly don't recommend losing that ACC Championship Game, undefeated or not, though.

Michigan will need some help to even make the Big Ten Championship if it can't stay unblemished in the next four weeks, and the Big Ten West does have two Top 10 teams with nice and shiny resumes.

And Washington? Well, the CFP committee already looks dimly on the Huskies' non-conference slate. Again, they'll need some help if a loss happens.

And odds are that someone, somewhere, is going down in the next five weeks. College football is too unpredictable for an entire November to go by without a major upset. The fun's just beginning.

2. Does it really matter that Texas A&M is ranked above Washington?

The "whoa moment" of Tuesday night came when 7-1 Texas A&M, currently second in the SEC West, was given the No. 4 ranking over 8-0 Pac-12 dominator Washington, who sits at No. 5. That's a significant departure in conventional wisdom after last week's action, considering Washington was over 100 points ahead of A&M in the current 61-voter AP poll.

That all said, it's a distinction without a difference at this point. If both teams win out, Washington will be a conference champion, and Texas A&M (barring some late-season insanity with the Crimson Tide) will not. And if the Aggies are the only thing between the Huskies and a College Football Playoff berth, the Huskies can rest easily.

It must feel good to be the Aggies, though, and if they ever needed another motivating factor to finish out the season strong, this is it; if there are only three Playoff-worthy conference champions this season and the Aggies are right there at 11-1, it's probably time to party in College Station.

2. Is there really a difference between No. 2 and No. 3?

Alabama's got a stranglehold on No. 1 for the foreseeable future. Right now, Clemson's ranked above No. 3 Michigan, but its toughest regular season games have come and gone; Michigan's still got that team in Columbus to deal with.

Considering the No. 4 spot looks as "subject to change" this season as it was for most of 2015, the matter of "No. 2 or No. 3" that Clemson and Michigan will probably fight over for the foreseeable future seems largely cosmetic. The two teams would still play each other, and on a neutral field--and with Alabama likely to take the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl for itself and its fans, the Fiesta Bowl won't be much of a factor in either direction for either team.

There is one scenario whether No. 2 or 3 matters, though, and that's if Alabama loses. That would be an enormous benefit to whichever team is in that second spot, who would then get its selection of bowl sites and the added benefit of facing that as yet undetermined No. 4 team while letting someone else deal with Bama in the first round.

We're getting so, so far ahead of ourselves at that point, though.

4. Are we prepared for Auburn winning out?

Don't look now, but Auburn is 6-2, ranked No. 9 in the first CFP poll and lurking at 4-1 in the SEC. The Tigers are third in the pecking order in the SEC West, having already lost at Texas A&M, but they only need a little help to jump into that SEC Championship berth -- well, a little help and a little win at Alabama, anyway.

If that happens and Auburn goes on to win the SEC title, all of a sudden the Playoff Committee has a massive problem on its hands. Its stated goals include a preference for conference champions, and two-loss Auburn would be exactly that, while one-loss Alabama wouldn't even have its division title.

Perhaps the head-to-head component makes it obvious that Auburn would be ahead of Alabama in the committee's rankings. Perhaps it's good that Auburn's two losses have come against teams currently in the Top 4, and that it's all right for a two-loss team to have losses like those if its wins also include Bama and the SEC Championship. Perhaps.

But if more people in the committee think Alabama is still better-equipped to vie for the national championship in terms of overall quality, well, that'll be a tough discussion to have.

4. Is Louisville out of the race already?

For a team with the prohibitive Heisman favorite and a resume with only one blemish at the No. 2 team in the country, Louisville isn't sitting too pretty in this initial poll. The Cardinals are at No. 7, and while they're in phenomenal position for Orange Bowl berth, their road to the playoff is decidedly murkier.

That's because Louisville has only one win against a ranked foe, the rapidly dropping Florida State (even though it was by a metric gazillion points) and that late-season matchup against Houston is losing its luster at the same rate that the Cougars' bowl hopes are. Remember when Louisville-Houston looked like it might even be a play-in game for a CFP berth? Life comes at you fast.

5. How did Penn State end up at No. 12?

Hey, congratulations to Penn State for a three-point comeback victory against Ohio State -- that's one of the best wins any team has this season. It was enough to vault the Nittany Lions all the way to No. 20 in the AP Poll, No. 23 in the notoriously slow-reacting Coaches Poll... and No. 12 in the CFP Poll, ahead of everybody in the Big 12.

It's strange, because the Nittany Lions' resume is exactly one game long. They lost a shootout with Pitt, a team we won't be hearing from on Tuesday evenings. They got blown to smithereens by Michigan. And the Nittany Lions haven't really beaten anybody else; if they beat struggling Iowa this weekend (again, at home), that'll be the second-best win on the resume. Jeff Sagarin's USA Today computer rankings have Penn State at No. 26; even Western Michigan ranks higher there.

Yes, after the Top 10 or so the quality of college football teams drops off substantially this year, but the CFP committee members can't just lose their minds about that Ohio State win.

6. Can a wild November save the Big 12?

Currently, the Big 12's highest-ranked team in the CFP poll is No. 14 Oklahoma, followed by No. 17 Baylor, No. 18 Oklahoma State and No. 20 West Virginia. OU already has two losses on its docket and would appear to be safely out of the discussion, and the other three teams have even more ground to make up.

It may not be so simple. Oklahoma's final three games are against those ranked foes, which gives the Sooners ample opportunity to build a hefty resume in a hurry, and Baylor's got a season finale against West Virginia as well. That's four games among four ranked foes, all in November.

OU and Baylor look like the only possible beneficiaries; there's just not enough opportunity for Oklahoma State or West Virginia to make up enough ground in the race to contend for a playoff position. And it's especially telling that the CFP pollsters ranked OU, Baylor and West Virginia multiple spots lower than in the AP; there's not a lot of respect going around at the moment. But maybe, just maybe, a 10-2 Sooner team or an 11-1 Baylor squad turns some heads. Probably not... but maybe.

7. How safe is Western Michigan in the Group of 5?

The Cotton Bowl will host the highest-ranked Group of 5 conference champion at the end of the regular season, and currently that's undefeated Western Michigan at No. 23, with wins against Northwestern and Illinois leading its resume.

Not so far behind? No. 24 Boise State, who was just upended by a surprisingly solid Wyoming team in Cheyenne last week. That Week 2 victory over Washington State looks better and better for the Broncos--the Boise State Broncos, mind you, not the WMU Broncos--and the BYU victory will probably age nicely too.

But at the end of the day, neither team has a high-profile game remaining on its schedule, and it's hard to say no to an undefeated Group of 5 team that goes after Power 5 non-conference games like WMU did, isn't it?