Predicting what the final 12-team College Football Playoff will be

The 12-team College Football Playoff is just days away from being set.

The penultimate College Football Playoff Rankings were released on Tuesday night and, shockingly, the Alabama Crimson Tide have come back to life. After being left for dead a couple of weeks ago, Alabama now stands to backdoor its way into the playoff as the committee has laid out.

Heading into conference championship weekend, we've got some major games on the horizon that will determine not just seeding, but also which teams will make the field altogether.

Here's our prediction for how things shake out this weekend and what that will mean when the committee reconvenes and announces the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff on Sunday.

First-Round Byes

1) Oregon Ducks
2) Georgia Bulldogs
3) Boise State Broncos
4) Clemson Tigers

We've got Oregon and Georgia winning their respective conference championship games and earning the top-two seeds in the playoff. Boise State will beat UNLV and we've got Clemson upsetting SMU in Charlotte.

It seems like it's now or never for Dabo Swinney's Tigers, so if they can't get the job done this time, major changes could soon be on the horizon. Something tells us that Clemson will get the job done and, with a win over No. 8 SMU, the Tigers will jump the Big 12 Champion and earn that final first-round bye.

First-Round Matchups

12) Arizona State Sun Devils at 5) Penn State Nittany Lions
11) Alabama Crimson Tide at 6) Notre Dame Fighting Irish
10) Indiana Hoosiers at 7) Texas Longhorns
9) Tennessee Volunteers at 8) Ohio State Buckeyes

If Texas loses to Georgia and Penn State loses to Oregon, there will be a lot of discussion to be had on who deserves to be ranked ahead of one another. The conversation will be between Penn State, Texas, and Notre Dame, and the Longhorns have the weakest of the three resumes, which is why we have the at the 7-seed.

Arizona State wins the Big 12 and earns that 12-seed in this projection and Alabama gets the last at-large bid — locked in at No. 11 — as the committee shortchanges SMU and the ACC. It's not what we think should happen, but rather what we think will happen.

Who says no?

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