2014 college football rankings, Week 12: Alabama tops composite Top 25

Week 11 saw the Playoff picture come into further focus -- a number of contenders had to face each other, and two more ranked teams (Auburn and West Virginia) fell to unranked opponents (Texas A&M and Texas). Auburn’s loss opened a spot in the top four, while former contenders Kansas State, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, LSU and Utah all suffered defeats to fellow contenders.

Mississippi State and Florida State hold on to their top two spots in the polls, while Oregon and Alabama hold the other two -- the Ducks higher in the AP Poll, the Tide higher in the Coaches. TCU and Baylor immediately follow those two in both polls, while Ohio State and Arizona State come next (the Sun Devils higher in the AP and the Buckeyes higher in the Coaches).

The official Playoff rankings come out Tuesday (here are the seven big final scores that’ll change those), but we’ll try to hold you over until then with these!

The Associated Press Top 25: The longest-running and best-respected human poll. Didn’t have any official bearing on the latter years of the BCS, and won’t have any official bearing on the Playoff. Expect it to set the course for the committee, however, as most outlets (including SB Nation) will use the AP’s rankings as the standard until the committee takes over in late October. Usually comes out Sundays around 2 p.m. ET.

The USA Today Coaches Poll: Formerly part of the BCS, and now just a poll. It tends to be more conservative than the AP’s. Though polling athletic departments in order to rank other athletic departments is dubious, we still want multiple human polls in here, and it’s the other big one. Releases early Sunday afternoons.

The Massey computer composite: A collection of ... every rating out there. By including it here, we’re giving extra weight to the two human polls, since they’re already two of the dozens of ratings included in the Massey. It changes over the course of the week as more rankings arrive, so we’ve included the latest version as of publication.

Football Outsiders’ F/+ rating: A synthesis of ratings by smart persons Bill Connelly and Brian Fremeau and our personal go-to overall team stat. It tends to come out later than the others.