The College Football Playoff committee’s third top-25 ranking of 2017 is released in full below. Alabama’s your new No. 1, taking over for Georgia after the Dawgs got embarrassed at Auburn.

Whereas Week 11 was humongous, Week 12 is more of a table-setter. Unless we get a few upsets, No. 24 Michigan at No. 5 Wisconsin could be the only really big game, other than some teams locking up conference title shots. Let’s have faith in upsets. (Still, Rivalry Week begins five days later, so madness is inbound one way or the other.)

It’s still a little early, and these will fluctuate quite a bit before Selection Sunday. Notes on a couple of things about this week and the committee’s general process are below these rankings.

Updated College Football Playoff rankings

1. Alabama (10-0, No. 2 last week, against Mercer this week)
2. Clemson (9-1, 4, Citadel)
3. Miami (9-0, 7, Virginia)
4. Oklahoma (9-1, 5, at Kansas)
5. Wisconsin (10-0, 8, Michigan)
6. Auburn (8-2, 10, ULM)
7. Georgia (9-1, 1, Kentucky)
8. Notre Dame (8-2, 3, Navy)
9. Ohio State (8-2, 13, Illinois)
10. Penn State (8-2, 14, Nebraska)
11. USC (9-2, 11, UCLA)
12. TCU (8-2, 6, at Texas Tech)
13. Oklahoma State (8-2, 15, Kansas State)
14. Washington State (9-2, 19, bye)
15. UCF (9-0, 18, at Temple)
16. Mississippi State (7-3, 16, at Arkansas)
17. Michigan State (7-3, 12, Maryland)
18. Washington (8-2, 9, Utah)
19. NC State (7-3, 23, at Wake Forest)
20. LSU (7-3, 24, at Tennessee)
21. Memphis (8-1, 22, SMU)
22. Stanford (7-3, unranked, Cal)
23. Northwestern (7-3, 25, Minnesota)
24. Michigan (8-2, unranked, at Wisconsin)
25. Boise State (8-2, unranked, Air Force)

Alabama isn’t a perfect No. 1, but it’s the best choice at the moment.

The Tide have two top-20 wins (more in number than Wisconsin and Miami, too), a top-50 strength of schedule in plenty of ratings (unlike Wisconsin), and otherwise haven’t been challenged (which Miami can’t claim).

Does Bama have long-term worries? Absolutely, such as all sorts of backup linebackers having to go to Auburn in two weeks, after a gimme against Mercer. But this Tuesday (and thus next Tuesday as well), the committee will keep it simple.

Clemson at No. 2 is a little bit of a surprise (I guessed it’d be Oklahoma and then Miami), but check the wins.

Beating Auburn means a lot at this point. NC State remains pretty curiously high, so that’s another nice win. And Clemson’s knack for playing schedules stuffed with bowl teams continues again this year, with a 7-0 record against .500-plus teams so far (and a somewhat forgivable, injury-marred loss at Syracuse). The Tigers also haven’t played a whole bunch of close games against lesser teams, as Miami and Oklahoma have — other than the, uh, one they lost. Miami hasn’t lost. Anyway!

Regardless of the rankings, here’s the Playoff picture.

In no particular order, here are your DESTINY CONTROLLERS. If these teams reach these records with conference titles, they’re in.

• The ACC champ (12-1 Clemson, 11-1 or better Miami).
• The SEC champ (13-0 Alabama, 11-2 Auburn, or 12-1 Georgia).
• 12-1 Oklahoma.
• 13-0 Wisconsin.

That’s actually pretty clean, considering we’ve already got weird stuff like two-loss contenders.

But somebody’s gonna lose. So we’re likely to dip into this group for at least one team:

• 12-1 Alabama, 11-1 Alabama, 12-1 Wisconsin, 11-2 Ohio State, 11-2 USC, another 11-2 conference champ, or — ok, we have to cut it off here, because this has already gone too far — a 10-2 Notre Dame.