College Football Playoff 2024 - Week 13 bubble watch - ESPN

For all of the talk about the 12-team College Football Playoff being a borderline SEC-Big Ten invitational, consider that one-loss Boise State is now in the same club as Oregon, Texas and Miami — in position to earn a first-round bye as one of the four highest-ranked conference champions.

This 13-member CFP selection committee has placed a premium on who teams lost to as well as who they beat, and Boise State's narrow loss to No. 1 Oregon looks far better than BYU's recent upset defeat to six-loss Kansas.

What does that mean for the Big 12? And is there anything Georgia can do to move up if a win against Tennessee didn't do it?

Here are three lessons learned from the third ranking, followed by a look at eight more teams who could play their way in and how the Group of 5 race stacks up.

Jump to a topic:
What we learned
Last two in | First four out
Next four out | Group of 5

Georgia is on stable ground, but without a first-round home game

The Bulldogs have the No. 1 schedule in the country, and are No. 3 in ESPN's strength of record metric, which means the average CFP contender would have just an 11.4% chance to achieve the same 8-2 record against the same opponents. Georgia has defeated three CFP top 25 teams, including No. 3 Texas, No. 11 Tennessee and No. 17 Clemson. But it's still not enough to overcome head-to-head losses to Alabama and Ole Miss. That means Georgia is ranked too low to be seeded 5-8 and earn a first-round home game. With remaining games against UMass and Georgia Tech, it's unlikely that would change — unless the teams above them lose.

The ACC is in a better position than the Big 12

With No. 13 SMU ahead of No. 14 BYU, the winner of the ACC championship game appears to be in good shape to lock up a