Bill Bender graduated from Ohio University in 2002 and started at The Sporting News as a fantasy football writer in 2007. He has covered the College Football Playoff, NBA Finals and World Series for SN. Bender enjoys story-telling, awesomely-bad 80s movies and coaching youth sports.

Oregon, Ohio State, Texas and Penn State held onto the top spots in the latest edition of the College Football Playoff rankings, the selection committee announced. Three other schools dropped from the projected list.

The Alabama Crimson Tide are in danger of missing out on the College Football Playoff, which no one predicted once it expanded to 12 teams.

Nicole Auerbach builds her 12-team bracket after Alabama and Ole Miss pick up their third losses and Indiana suffers its first defeat of the season.

Still, nine of the Big 12's 16 teams have reached bowl eligibility entering Kansas and Cincinnati are also within reach as they each have five wins with one game remaining. Below is a Big 12 look at USA TODAY Sports' updated college football bowl game projections: All of a sudden,

After another wild weekend on the gridiron, the fourth iteration of the College Football Playoff rankings dropped Tuesday night. There was some significant movement in the new rankings released after the Week 13 games.