Projecting the new College Football Playoff rankings: How close can Texas get?

College football's regular season is in the books, which means we can turn our full attention to the College Football Playoff field.

At this point, there appear to be eight teams locked into the 12-team bracket (with seeds TBD):

• Ohio State

• Indiana

• Georgia

• Texas A&M

• Texas Tech

• Oregon

• Ole Miss*

• Oklahoma

* assuming the CFP selection committee doesn't penalize Ole Miss for Lane Kiffin's departure

Those eight teams should be in the field — regardless of what happens in conference championship games. That means title game participants on this list have enough wiggle room that they can lose next weekend and still be fine.

We can also pencil in two conference champions for the Nos. 11 and 12 seeds. Right now, I'm projecting Virginia as the ACC champion (and No. 11 seed), but if the Cavaliers get upset by a 7-5 Duke team ... then I think we are looking at a very real possibility that the ACC is left out of the CFP entirely. The Blue Devils would not be ranked in the committee's Top 25 and could be ranked behind two Group of 5 conference champions — the American, and perhaps the Mountain West or Sun Belt champion as well. Only the five highest-ranked FBS conference champions are guaranteed spots in the 12-team field.

But ... that's a question for a later projection. We're looking at what I think the selection committee will do on Tuesday, ahead of championship weekend. So, I've got Virginia in as my projected ACC champion (even though Miami will be ranked higher in the overall rankings — the 'Canes can only make the CFP as an at-large team). I've got Tulane in at No. 12 as my highest-ranked Group of 5 conference champion. I believe the winner of the American title game will be the highest-ranked G5 team.

Now, let's talk about the elephant in the room. And by elephant, I mean the 9-3 Texas Longhorns. Texas is the only three-loss team that will get legitimate CFP consideration, and we'll see just how close the Longhorns can get to the actual field. I've got them ranked just behind 11-1 BYU and ahead of 10-2 Miami. Texas would be two spots out from the field right now, if the committee matches my projection.

Texas has two wins over teams currently ranked in the committee's top eight — and will have three wins over top-15 teams when we see the new rankings on Tuesday. That is an impressive collection of wins and the win over Vanderbilt should finally come into play, with the Longhorns jumping ahead of the Commodores due to the head-to-head result. I also think the committee will need to make a point not to penalize Texas too harshly for its seven-point loss to No. 1 Ohio State; that's the closest anyone has played the Buckeyes all year. Obviously, the loss to 4-8 Florida is the bad loss dragging down the Texas resume, but I do think Steve Sarkisian is correct that a 10-2 record with that loss to the Gators is still probably good enough to be in the field. It's very similar to Alabama's bad loss to Florida State, if we're being honest. But a third loss coming in a big, challenging nonconference game is the one the committee needs to address. I think it needs to treat that loss carefully — and kind of like half a loss, if that makes sense — because if Texas is unfairly penalized for going out and playing Ohio State it may discourage other schools from playing nonconference games like that in the future.

Ultimately, I think the three top-15 wins are enough to vault Texas up from No. 16 to No. 12. I'd wait and see what happens with BYU in the Big 12 championship game, but there's definitely space for the Longhorns to slide up one more spot if the Cougars lose to Texas Tech again, particularly if it's in lopsided fashion. Blowouts are likely part of the chaos that Texas will need to root for next weekend. I also think the committee would enjoy having another buffer team between Notre Dame and Miami to avoid having to deal with that Week 1 head-to-head result — which is why I've moved Texas ahead of the Hurricanes, even though Miami has done nothing wrong down the stretch.

One of the most pertinent remaining questions for this selection committee is how it will handle conference championship weekend. Chair Hunter Yurachek has indicated that teams would be able to move up and down based on what happens, but we don't know just how impactful these upcoming results will be.