College Football Playoff top 12 projection after Week 9 - ESPN

The guessing game is almost over.

The College Football Playoff selection committee will release its first of six rankings on Tuesday night (7 p.m. ET/ESPN), finally revealing how the contenders for this season's 12-team field stack up. The 13 members of the group — four power-conference athletic directors, two Group of 6 athletic directors, six at-large members consisting of former players, coaches and administrators, and one former journalist — have two full months of data to evaluate. They will begin deliberating on Monday and finish on Tuesday around lunch.

Their task, as stated in their written protocol, hasn't changed: «Select the best teams, rank the teams for inclusion in the playoff, and then assign the teams to the playoff bracket.»

It might be one of the more difficult initial rankings in recent years with so many teams having already suffered multiple losses.

How far do they drop Ohio State after the Buckeyes' loss to USC? Do they honor BYU's head-to-head win against Notre Dame in spite of a bad loss to UCF? How do they sort through two-loss SEC teams?

Based on historical knowledge and an understanding of the criteria and protocol, here's a look at what the selection committee might do on Tuesday.

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Why they could be here: This might actually be the easiest decision the committee has to make, as the Canes remain the total package. With two Heisman candidates in quarterback Darian Mensah and receiver Malachi Toney, plus four ACC road wins and one of the top teams in ESPN's Strength of Record metric, the Canes should be a no-brainer for the committee's top spot. They've got the eye test and the statistics.

Why they could be lower: Some selection committee members could question Miami's