Texas remains outside 12-team field in latest CFP rankings

Texas' big win over Texas A&M wasn't enough to move it into the 12-team College Football Playoff field, with the Longhorns sitting No. 13 in the latest rankings that were released Tuesday.

That makes it extremely unlikely that Texas makes the playoff field with the Longhorns not playing in conference championship weekend. The Aggies dropped out of a top-4 spot with the loss on the road and now sit No. 7 in the rankings.

The top three remained unchanged with Ohio State, Indiana, and Georgia filling those slots, with Texas Tech and Oregon sitting at 4 and 5. Ole Miss moved up to No. 6, with the committee clearly not affected by Lane Kiffin's departure for LSU.

While BYU and Miami are both in the top 12, those two programs would drop out to satisfy the requirement that the five highest-ranked conference champions are selected.

CFP chair Hunter Yurachek did say on the ESPN broadcast that idle teams can move up or down despite not playing on championship weekend. However, the committee did not make any changes last year in the final rankings, with SMU staying in the field despite losing the ACC title game.

The Cougars have a chance to punch their ticket by winning the Big 12 title game over Texas Tech on Saturday, while the Hurricanes are done for their regular-season schedule. However, Miami and Notre Dame will now both finish with identical 10-2 records with the Hurricanes holding a head-to-head win over the Irish from Week 1. That could force the committee to give the nod to Miami in the final rankings and keep the Irish out.

One notable addition to the bottom of the list is James Madison at No. 25. The Dukes play in the Sun Belt title game this weekend and could create quite the scenario should they win. Duke and Virginia face off in the ACC title game Saturday despite the fact the Blue Devils are just 7-5 on the season. Should Duke pull the upset and knock off the Cavaliers, the ACC could be left out of the playoff all together.

The current playoff bracket would have Oregon and Ole Miss hosting the fourth- and fifth-highest-ranked conference champions, while the other two first-round games would feature rematches between Alabama and Oklahoma and Texas A&M versus Notre Dame.