Tuesday night brought some intrigue for Oklahoma State fans across the country. After defeating rival Oklahoma in Bedlam, combined with an Ohio State loss meant that the Pokes certainly would move up at least one spot from last week's No. 7 ranking by the College Football playoff committee.

The real question is whether the CFP ranking would follow the polls and move OSU ahead of 11-1 Notre Dame and into the top five.

That's exactly what happened.

That nearly - but not entirely - sets up a "win and you're in" scenario for the Cowboys and the Big 12 Championship game with No. 9 Baylor. Any loss among Nio.'s 2-4 - that's Michigan, Alabama or Cincinnati - in their respective conference championship games would ensure a win and you're in scenario for OSU. Just about the only scenario that could see the Cowboys fail to move into the top four is No. 3 Alabama upsetting No. 1 in their re-match with Georgia and both SEC teams winding up in the final top four. Even then, both Michigan and Cincy would have to win and do so more impressively than OSU did against BU.

Simply put, OSU's path is fairly straight, but SEC chaos could complicate things.

It probably does not need to be said, but a loss in the Big 12 Conference championship game would 100% remove OSU from the conversation about the playoff field.

Conference championship games begin on Friday night with the PAC-12 champ game, which should not have any effect on the rankings at the top, barring the rest of the weekend turning into chaos. In addition to the Big 12 title game (11 a.m. CST, ABC,), OSU fans will want to keep an eye on the SEC Championship (CBS) and AAC (ABC) title games, both of which kick at 3 p.m. CST. The B1G title game kicks off at 7 central on Fox.