ESPN’s Heather Dinich shares her updated top-12 College Football Playoff rankings

On Monday morning, ESPN's Heather Dinich released her latest ranking of the top 12 teams in the country for college football coming off a thrilling slate of Week 5 action.

Specifically, her ratings reflect how she believes the College Football Playoff committee would distribute the teams at this point in the season, and she uses logic and evidence from how the committee navigated building last season's field. For instance, she pointed out the odd choice by the Week 6 AP Poll to rank Alabama a full eight spots higher than Florida State despite the Seminoles owning the head-to-head win over the Crimson Tide. She doesn't see the happening in a CFP-focused poll.

With that in mind, take a look at Dinich's full poll, as shared on her Instagram account:

1. Miami Hurricanes
2. Ohio State Buckeyes
3. Oregon Ducks
4. Texas A&M Aggies
5. Ole Miss Rebels
6. Oklahoma Sooners
7. Florida State Seminoles
8. Alabama Crimson Tide
9. Georgia Bulldogs
10. Indiana Hoosiers
11. Tennessee Volunteers
12. Penn State Nittany Lions

In the video, Dinich lays out the logic behind her order of teams 7-11...

"So in my top 12, I used the committee's protocol, which includes the head-to-head results, and I've got Florida State ahead of Alabama, have Alabama above Georgia, and I have Georgia above Tennessee," she shared. If the record change, that will change."

So, if the 'Noles drop another game, for instance, and are no longer on the same one-loss footing as Alabama, or vice-versa, then the calculus can change. But early in the season with only so many crossover data points, Dinich argues for sticking with the proof.

"If Florida State loses to Miami, their records are no longer comparable, Florida State and Alabama," she further explained. "And then you can say, you know what, I don't care about the tiebreaker, Florida State is not that good, I'm going to drop them down."

For now, though, Florida State is the head of the snake, slightly ahead of an Alabama team they beat, and Alabama is ahead of a Georgia team at No. 8 who they just beat, and Georgia remains a couple of spots ahead of a Tennessee team that they beat. It's a real delicate chain of results winding around Heather Dinich's top 10 as we head toward Week 6.

Read more on College Football HQ