Pay attention to the College Football Playoff rankings Tuesday, and not just at the top. The middle tier will provide another future case study for CFP philosophy 101.

If the selection committee jumps 9-3 Florida State ahead of 9-3 Louisville, it’s time to re-evaluate how much the committee prioritizes the on-field results. In September, the Cardinals blew the Seminoles out 63-20. It was a one-score game for all of 14 minutes.

The debate should probably end right there, but Florida State could move ahead in Tuesday’s rankings, which likely determines who plays in the Orange Bowl. If Clemson beats Virginia Tech as a double-digit favorite, the next highest-ranked ACC team heads to South Florida. Last week, Louisville was ranked No. 11 and Florida State was penciled in at No. 14, but the Cardinals lost.

Interpreting the College Football Playoff rankings has been challenging. Body of work, eye test, strength of schedule, head to head -- it’s difficult discerning what holds the most value with the selection committee. The reality is the committee has been given carte blanche to establish each week’s rankings as it sees fit.

It would take some impressive maneuvering, however, to slide Louisville behind Florida State when comparing each team’s complete résumé and the head-to-head result. The Seminoles’ best argument is that three weeks is a better sample size than three months. The case for their admission into the New Year’s Six is the eye test, which they passed in November when the Cardinals, losers of two straight, did not.

The undefined metric the Seminoles fan base once held such contempt for just two years ago is now it’s rock-solid case to load the trailers and take the Florida turnpike south to the Orange Bowl. Florida State is hot, and Louisville is not.

That shouldn’t be enough to warrant inclusion in a major bowl ahead of Louisville, though. The past two games are not a comprehensive treatise on the Cardinals. They won every game by at least 31 points in September. Like Florida State, they lost to Clemson by a single score, except the Cardinals were on the road. They didn’t lose to any common opponents, and the Cardinals finished ahead of the Seminoles in the ACC standings.

Losing to Houston on the road on a short week in one of the season’s best environments isn’t a bad loss. Dropping the game to Kentucky at home certainly was bad -- future Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson's devil-may-care game management late was the culprit -- but if the Seminoles deserve credit for improving during the season, then why doesn’t Kentucky, which played well against Alabama and then won five of seven to close out the year?

But Florida State beat Florida, which beat Kentucky, which beat Louisville! However, the transitive property doesn’t work for two reasons. I’m in favor of not relying solely on head-to-head results if résumés aren’t similar or if the game is close, but Louisville beat Florida State by six (six!) touchdowns. And the transitive property works just as easily against the Seminoles. Take a look.

Louisville beat Duke which beat North Carolina which beat Florida State! And does that North Carolina (8-4) loss look significantly better than the Kentucky loss after the Heels dropped their final two FBS games against Duke (4-8, 1-7 ACC) and NC State (6-6, 3-5)?

The Seminoles are playing their best football of the season -- top-15 type football, no doubt -- but it can’t be overlooked that four of their five easiest FBS games came in November. They needed a dropped interception against NC State, and then they blew out Boston College, Syracuse and Florida. FSU fans wouldn’t acknowledge the Gators were any good until about 4 p.m. Saturday. Then the Gators were the rightful owner of a No. 15 ranking, and luckily for them the Gators likely settle at the bottom of the final rankings next week. But Saturday marked the fifth time Florida tallied fewer than 271 yards of total offense. Think Alabama makes it six?

Computers disagree that the Seminoles are the better team right now anyway. Louisville is ahead in the FPI, offensive and defensive efficiency, S&P+ and Sagarin ratings. The Seminoles have the significantly better strength of schedule, which is higher than head to head on the committee protocol, but their lone top-25 win against that schedule is against Florida. Louisville's lone top-25 win is against Florida State.

Dropping Louisville below Florida State would be an endorsement for college football's brand names while paying homage to the old guard. The antiquated model mandating a team that lost has to drop should have ended when the committee was established. An Orange Bowl bid rewards Florida State for playing -- and losing -- its tough games early.

And one of those losses was to Louisville. By 43 points.