Well, I’ve given up trying to understand the ACC.

For the time being, the league will get one team into the College Football Playoff bracket — its projected champion, as an automatic qualifier. That’s why, after Virginia and Louisville both lost to unranked teams on Saturday night, you’ll see Georgia Tech in my projection as the No. 11 seed. I expect the Yellow Jackets to be ranked lower than that in the CFP selection committee’s Top 25, but they’ll slide up and into the field as one of the five highest-ranked conference champions, which are guaranteed CFP access.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the Big 12. Last week, the selection committee had Texas Tech at No. 7, BYU at No. 8 and Utah at No. 13. All three Big 12 teams were ranked ahead of the top-ranked ACC team, which tells me that the committee has respect for the conference — and that it likes the Utes more than AP voters do. All of that was well and good ... until BYU got its doors blown off by Texas Tech in Lubbock.

Joshua Perry and Nicole Auerbach react to Texas Tech’s dominant win over BYU, breaking down the College Football Playoff picture in the Big 12 after the result.

The Red Raiders controlled the game, largely thanks to their elite defensive front (which stifled the Cougs’ run game and also got a ton of pressure against quarterback Bear Bachmeier). That type of loss is going to be tough for the selection committee to ignore, so I think they’ll drop BYU out of the bracket. Utah, though, is a backstop for BYU. The Cougs have a win over the Utes, so assuming the committee keeps Utah where it was last week and believes the two teams are comparable, it should slot BYU in just ahead of Utah (at No. 12).

That leaves us with a one-bid Big 12 for the time being, which opens up an at-large spot for a fifth SEC team. Hook ‘em! The Texas Longhorns, who were the first team out of the 12-team field a week ago, slide right up as the final at-large team in the current projection.

I’ve kept the top six teams in the same order they were in a week ago. We’ll see if the selection committee re-evaluates resumes as the season goes on — because it’s certainly possible (if not likely) that the winner of the SEC championship game will have more good wins than both Ohio State and Indiana and could leap-frog both — but for now we’ll go with how we know the committee felt in its first set of rankings. Indiana will stay in place despite its close call at Penn State, as will Oregon after its scare at Iowa. The Ducks and Fighting Irish both slide up one spot after BYU’s fall.

Highlights: Notre Dame rolls past Navy

Everything was clicking for Notre Dame as the Fighting Irish dominated Navy, extending the team’s winning streak to seven games.

College Football Playoff first-round byes

1. Ohio State (projected Big Ten champion) 2. Indiana 3. Texas A&M (projected SEC champion) 4. Alabama

CFP on-campus first-round hosts

5. Georgia 6. Ole Miss 7. Texas Tech (projected Big 12 champion) 8. Oregon

Final teams into the CFP field

9. Notre Dame 10. Texas 11. Georgia Tech (projected ACC champion) 12. USF (projected highest-ranked Group of 5 champion)

First teams out of CFP

Oklahoma (still behind Texas due to the head-to-head result but ahead of other SEC two-loss teams) BYU (with its win over Utah keeping it ahead of the Utes, who checked in at No. 13 last week)

It will be interesting to see if the committee agrees with my assertion that South Florida should be the highest-ranked Group of 5 team right now. Memphis was the Group of 5 placeholder team last week, but the Tigers weren’t actually ranked in the selection committee’s Top 25. When that happens, the committee has to go through all of the projected champions from the American, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West and the Sun Belt and rank them 1-5. So, we know that the committee felt that the American champion would be the highest ranked of the group a week ago, and we’ll see if that carries over to South Florida and its strong resume after Memphis lost to Tulane on Friday night.

Nicole Auerbach and Joshua Perry discuss Oregon surviving against Iowa at Kinnick Stadium in a game with College Football Playoff implications.