Plenty of questions remain

— -- Shhh. Listen. Hear that? No? Good. The College Football Playoff selection committee is as quiet as the Duke library, and it should be. Now is the time to study.

The 13-member committee won't reveal its first set of rankings until Oct. 28. Timing is everything, especially in college football, in which we know absolutely nothing after three weeks.

Right now, it's all we have to go on. By late October, there will be more than just a snapshot of the season to evaluate. Committee members will have seen Florida play Alabama, South Carolina at Auburn, Florida State versus Notre Dame, Oregon at UCLA and Oklahoma against K-State -- all before its first rankings are revealed.

"We had little arguments. Should we start Week 8? Should we start Week 6?" West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck, a committee member, told ESPN.com this summer. "But we thought more or less the same time as the first BCS rankings came out, which were highly anticipated."

That's not to say the committee will have all the answers in Week 7. Hardly. In fact, expect more debate than ever. (Sorry, No. 5.) But looking back over seven weeks certainly paints a clearer picture than what we've seen through three weeks.

Maybe Florida State isn't the most complete team in the country. Maybe the Big Ten will make the playoff. Maybe Florida will win the SEC East (in triple-overtime). Maybe Stanford will beat Oregon (again?!). Maybe -- just maybe -- Baylor will beat Oklahoma.

College football is an illusion. You stare so hard at it every Saturday, thinking you see the picture, only to have that very same game you were just watching mean something totally different a month later.

Virginia Tech's win at Ohio State was HUGE! One week later, after the Hokies were upset at home by East Carolina, Ohio State's loss looked even worse. Clemson's loss to Georgia wasn't so bad -- until Georgia lost to South Carolina.

How will the Bulldogs' loss be portrayed come November? History says it won't matter. The past two times it happened, Georgia won the SEC East. Can South Carolina buck the trend?

Considering the volatile nature of the sport and its fans, the selection committee wanted to wait to find out.

"We sat and thought, 'What really is best for the game?'" Luck said. "We didn't like the idea of preseason rankings. Didn't even like the idea of rankings after the first three or four weeks. You've got to have a body of work before people can tell where you belong. We thought getting together live in Dallas Week 7 was the responsible, prudent thing to do."

Thank gawd.

Trying to predict the College Football Playoff right now is like trying to keep track of Taylor Swift's boyfriends. There's a new flavor every week.

Luck said there was some concern among the committee members that if they had done only one ranking at the end of the season, like the NCAA men's basketball selection committee, they would have been "yielding territory" from too many other groups, and there would have been too many other independent polls popping up.

"Everybody that cares about college football will come up with their own rankings," Luck said. "That's fine -- that will still be the case -- but we thought that would be a little bit inappropriate because none of those rankings are really official. Even in the old days, you could say, 'Here are the Sagarin rankings,' which was a component of the BCS ranking. But none of those rankings will have any real effect on what happens at the end of the year."

And so we wait -- not so quietly -- for the rankings that will.

Four Downs

The ACC needs FSU (again): After Virginia Tech lost to East Carolina and Louisville lost to Virginia, both dropped out of The Associated Press Top 25, and the old line rings true once again: The ACC needs Florida State to stay at the top. A loss to Clemson this weekend wouldn't knock the Noles or the ACC out of the playoff race, but it would close the margin for error significantly.

Gators' gauntlet begins: Three overtimes against Kentucky? Psh. That was the easy part. Will Muschamp didn't win any job security with his narrow escape this past week, but a win over Alabama? That would make a statement. Alabama is the first of six ranked opponents for the Gators.

Wildcard Wildcats: Is K-State a sleeper in the playoff? It could be with a win Thursday over Auburn. The Big 12 spotlight has been on Oklahoma and Baylor, and deservedly so, but the Wildcats' schedule sets up for a possible playoff run with four ranked opponents. It starts with Auburn.

Big loss? Small worries: USC's loss to Boston College was the biggest upset of the season, according to ESPN's Football Power Index, but the Trojans still have the second-best chance to win the Pac-12 behind Oregon, thanks to a favorable schedule and a 1-0 start to conference play. As for Georgia, the Bulldogs still have a better chance than South Carolina to win the SEC East, according to FPI. That's partly because the Gamecocks have to travel to Florida and Auburn.