It's all coming together now.

While the chaos of the college football season continued this past weekend with Michigan stunning rival Ohio State and Syracuse shocking Miami, the initial 12-team College Football Playoff field is coming into focus.

All that remains before the actual bracket is a slate of conference title games, which will be important for seeding and first-round byes. But the teams that will be included in the field became clearer Tuesday when the selection committee released its latest set of rankings.

Here is a look at those rankings with the important caveat that they will look different than the current projected bracket because the four highest-ranked conference champions will get the top seeds and first-round byes that come with them.

What's more, the fifth-highest-ranked conference champion will get an automatic spot in the field even if that team is outside the top 12.

1. Oregon
2. Texas
3. Penn State
4. Notre Dame
5. Georgia 
6. Ohio State
7. Tennessee
8. SMU
9. Indiana
10. Boise State
11. Alabama
12. Miami
13. Ole Miss
14. South Carolina
15. Arizona State
16. Iowa State
17. Clemson
18. BYU
19. Missouri
20. UNLV
21. Illinois
22. Syracuse
23. Colorado
24. Army
25. Memphis

While all the seeding and first-round byes are still up in the air entering the conference title games, the argument could be made even before Tuesday's rankings release that 11 of the 12 spots are already spoken for with likely locks.

Here is a look at those 11 spots that seemed all but locked up before the rankings in no particular order:

• Big Ten Championship Game winner between Oregon and Penn State
• SEC Championship Game winner between Texas and Georgia
• ACC Championship Game winner between SMU and Clemson
• Big 12 Championship Game winner between Arizona State and Iowa State
• Highest-ranked Group of 5 Conference champion (likely Boise State or UNLV)
• Notre Dame as at-large
• Ohio State as at-large
• Tennessee as at-large
• Indiana as at-large
• Big Ten Championship Game loser as at-large
• SEC Championship Game loser as at-large

That leaves just the one spot remaining for a 12-team field, and the argument seemed to come down to two-loss Miami against the group of three-loss SEC contenders in Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina.

Miami has one fewer losses than the trio from the SEC, but it doesn't have as many quality wins to fall back on either. Its best wins are over a Florida team that wasn't starting DJ Lagway yet in Week 1 and over an 8-4 Louisville squad.

By comparison, both Alabama and Ole Miss have wins over Georgia and South Carolina. As for the Gamecocks, they defeated Texas A&M and Clemson and have won six in a row, but those head-to-head losses against the Crimson Tide and Rebels loom large considering they are all chasing the same thing.

According to ESPN's metrics, Alabama is 10th in strength of record and 17th in strength of schedule, South Carolina is 11th in strength of record and 15th in strength of schedule, Miami is 14th in strength of record and 55th in strength of schedule, and Ole Miss is 18th in strength of record and 31st in strength of schedule.

Tuesday's rankings were incredibly important for all four schools since none of them reached their conference title games and created an opportunity to add another metric in their favor.

That is why it seems like Alabama will ultimately be in the field, although there is still a possibility of more chaos if Clemson defeats SMU.

Clemson might be a bid-stealer in such a scenario, as it would receive an automatic spot in the field as a conference champion and create a situation where both teams in the ACC title game made the playoff.

An argument could be made that keeping a two-loss SMU team in the field in such a hypothetical would be the cleanest decision for the committee since it would set a precedent of not strictly punishing teams for reaching the conference title game and avoid a scenario where it has to parse out the differences between a handful of three-loss SEC squads and Miami.

But Clemson would have to do something it hasn't done all season and defeat a ranked team if that is going to come into play.