Before The Snap: 3 Week 12 games that could jumble the College Football Playoff rankings

Welcome to Before The Snap, For The Win’s college football series where we’ll break down the sport’s trending storylines, examine each week’s biggest matchups and track the College Football Playoff and Heisman Trophy races.

After the latest College Football Playoff rankings dropped Tuesday, we saw that the order of the top-7 teams hadn’t changed from Week 11 to Week 12. It’s still No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Alabama, No. 3 Oregon, No. 4 Ohio State, No. 5 Cincinnati, No. 6 Michigan and No. 7 Michigan State.

But Notre Dame and Oklahoma State each moved up a spot to Nos. 8 and 9, respectively, while Wake Forest and Baylor each moved up two to Nos. 10 and 11, respectively.

So while the College Football Playoff committee didn’t see reasons to play with the top-7 teams this time, next week could be different. So Before The Snap is breaking down a few Week 12 games that could jumble the playoff picture and rankings.

All betting information is per Tipico Sportsbook as of Wednesday.

Georgia Tech at No. 8 Notre Dame

When: Saturday, 2:30 p.m. ET
Where: Notre Dame Stadium
Channel: NBC
Spread: Notre Dame -17.5
Playoff implications: If Notre Dame wins out against Georgia Tech in Week 12 and Stanford in Week 13, it’ll have a strong playoff resume — even without a conference championship to play for — as an 11-1 team with that lone defeat being against currently No. 5 Cincinnati. As For The Win recently noted, despite Notre Dame’s top-8 ranking, ESPN’s FPI says the team has the fourth-best chance to make the playoff at 46.2 percent. And with a guarantee that either Ohio State or Michigan State — two teams ahead of the Fighting Irish in the latest playoff rankings — another victory for Notre Dame could push it closer to the top-4 teams.

No. 7 Michigan State (9-1) at No. 4 Ohio State (9-1)

When: Saturday, Noon ET
Where: Ohio Stadium
Channel: ABC
Spread: Ohio State -19.5
Playoff implications: The top-7 teams in the latest College Football Playoff rankings didn’t change Tuesday, so Big Ten still has three teams in there. And with these two facing off in Week 12, it’s all but guaranteed the top-7 teams will change by the time the next rankings roll out. However, because of their respective losses so far, we expect Michigan State to drop a bit farther with a defeat than Ohio State would with its hypothetical second L. But with two undefeated teams in the hunt in No. 1 Georgia and No. 5 Cincinnati, along with several contending one-loss teams, it seems especially unlikely this year that the Big Ten will produce the first two-loss playoff team.

SMU at No. 5 Cincinnati

When: Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET
Where: Nippert Stadium
Channel: ESPN
Spread: Cincinnati -11.5
Playoff implications: To have a stronger shot at being the first Group of 5 team invited to the College Football Playoff, Cincinnati needed SMU to stay ranked and be the Bearcats’ second top-25 team on their schedule this year. Unfortunately for both, the Mustangs lost back-to-back games a few weeks ago and have yet to be ranked by the playoff committee. Still, if Cincinnati wants to keep its playoff dreams alive — regardless of the disrespect thrown its way — it needs to put up a convincing win against SMU and grab those style points wherever it can. Behind Notre Dame, the Bearcats currently have the fifth-best playoff chances at 45.1 percent, but with the way the committee has ranked them so far, they absolutely cannot afford a loss.