Heather Dinich explains the scenario in which both Alabama and Miami miss the College Football Playoff

Alabama And Miami landed at No. 11 or 12 in the penultimate College Football Playoff rankings on Tuesday evening. That would make the Crimson Tide the last major school to make it into the 12-team field, while the Hurricanes were the first to be left out.

This isn’t entirely set in stone, however, as conference championship games still need to be played. ESPN Senior Writer Heather Dinich pointed out that it’s still possible that Alabama could also be left out if there’s enough chaos among the teams below.

“I want to take a minute to remind people that these first-round byes can change,” she said on ESPN’s rankings reveal show. “I would also like to point out below that we have 11 Alabama and 12 Miami. We keep talking about the 12th team being left out for the fifth seeded conference champion, which is absolutely true: Arizona State. But when you have multiple conference winners that are outside the committee’s top 12 – and you look down in the rankings where you have Clemson, you have Iowa State, you have Arizona State, you have UNLV.

“If you have two of them still to get into that group on selection day, guess who’s out? Not just Miami, Alabama too. So you could have the 11th and 12th teams fight for the fourth and fifth highest conference champions.”

No. 8 SMU should play No. 17 Clemson in the ACC Championship. Most assume the Mustangs will win and secure the conference’s sole bid.

However, if the Tigers were to win, it would create a situation where they would receive the automatic bid, leaving the committee a decision to make in conjunction with the Mustangs. It could drop SMU below Alabama and keep the Crimson Tide in the playoffs, that’s not a guarantee.

If the Mustangs play a close game and lose, the committee can still decide to give them an at-large bid ahead of Alabama.

Dinich also mentioned the possibility that UNLV could beat Boise State in the Mountain West Championship. However, in this case, you would have to imagine that the Crimson Tide would be one step ahead of the Broncos.

Regardless, it’s far from certain that Alabama will punch its ticket to the playoffs. The Crimson Tide will be big SMU fans on Saturday and as long as the Mustangs win, they should have a good chance.