The penultimate College Football Playoff rankings were released Tuesday and

Having one is North Carolina’s only shot at the top four, and that shot would appear to be long.

The College Football Playoff selection committee will never be able to make five conference champs go into four spots, but a wild two days of games over the holiday weekend made the equation about as simple as possible.

The penultimate College Football Playoff rankings, released Tuesday evening, strongly reflected the continuing re-emergence of the Big Ten.

Ohio State, which wrapped up its season with a win over MI, moved up to sixth.

(11-0) Clemson (#2 in the A&H Rankings): Win out (at SC (#85 in the A&H Rankings) and versus North Carolina in the ACC Championship Game). The Sooners are 11-1, they are done, and they are a lock.

Houston (11-1), which comes in at No. 19 this week, is the highest ranked team from the Group of 5.

There will be no result from above that Oklahoma (11-1), which has finished its regular season, because the Big 12 does not stage a conference championship game. The Cowboys would own the tiebreaker by virtue of their head-to-head win over the Frogs. They’ve had some big wins, they had the bad losses and here they are, primed to be that good team you forget about come bowl pick ’em time.

(9-1) Baylor (#10 in the A&H Rankings): Win at TCU (#15 in the A&H Rankings), win at home against Texas (#58 in the A&H Rankings), hope Oklahoma State beats Oklahoma, hope Clemson or Notre Dame loses, and hope to prevail with the committee.

With No. 4 and No. 5 facing off for the conference championship this week, it’s pretty much seen as a play-in game for the playoff. And the Big Ten title game looks like it’s a play-in between Iowa and Michigan State. A pro-Tar Heels crowd will no doubt be gathered in Charlotte, North Carolina as the home state team tries to make an incredibly unlikely run at the postseason tournament. If this ranking holds up, Clemson would play Iowa and Alabama would play No. 3 Oklahoma (11-1) in the semifinals. However, it would be a monumental upset considering the Gators scored just two points in a loss to Florida State.

Next season, Oklahoma’s games against TCU, Baylor and Oklahoma State are more spread out in the schedule, plus the games with Baylor and Oklahoma State are in Norman in 2016.

Like Clemson, Alabama has one more game to win to secure its spot. I have the Tigers getting past North Carolina – barely – in the ACC championship game, while Bama blows away Florida in the SEC title game. That happens to be their best chance to knock off the country’s top-ranked team. In that scenario, we’d guess Michigan State, Ohio State and UNC would fill out the dance card.

With 30 seconds left in the game Saturday night at Stanford, DeShone Kizer scored a touchdown that put the Irish ahead 36-35 but the Notre Dame defense could not get one last stop. But while Iowa would have one more win than either the Buckeyes or Cardinal, the overall résumé of victories might not favor the Hawkeyes’ chances as an at-large bid.

Tonight, the second-most important poll of the year is announced, just one week before the only one that really counts.