CLEMSON — Tuesday was a big night for Clemson Football, now it has to take advantage of it.

Just in case one was not watching the College Football Playoff Top 25 Show on Tuesday night, the Tigers moved up five spots to No. 12. The ranking has the Tigers as the first team out heading into its regular season-finale against rival South Carolina, who is ranked No. 15.

With Clemson (9-2) ranked No. 12, a path to the CFP seems a lot clearer than it once did. A win over a top 15 South Carolina team this Saturday at Memorial Stadium can make that path even clearer.

“I’ll continue to say we don’t look forward and we don’t project, but winning always helps. I will say that,” CFP Committee Chairman Warde Manuel said. “When teams win, we value what they do. I don’t know what that would mean towards where they will be in projecting, but there is value in winning games.”

The Tigers can also get into the CFP with an automatic berth as the ACC Champion. Of course, they will need some help from Syracuse at first to get into the title game and then they will need to beat SMU.

Syracuse hosts No. 6 Miami on Saturday and if the Orange can pull off an upset, then Clemson will head to the ACC Championship Game and will play No. 9 SMU in Charlotte on Dec. 7.

While Clemson’s path is clear, it is not as clear for South Carolina (8-3). Even if the Gamecocks knock off the Tigers, they will still need Alabama and Ole Miss to lose. Bama is ranked No. 13 and Ole Miss is No. 14 in the rankings.

The Crimson Tide (8-3) will need to lose at home to rival Auburn and the Rebels (8-3) will need to lose to rival Mississippi State. Both Ole Miss and Alabama beat the Gamecocks in head-to-head meetings earlier this season.

“I would say in the committee’s eyes, (Alabama and Ole Miss) are really similar teams, and they’ve had similar ways that they’ve gone through the season,” Manuel said. “Both have had losses that you didn’t expect them to have. Alabama had a loss at Oklahoma, and Oklahoma’s performance was dominant against Alabama, and then you have the loss by Mississippi to Florida at Florida.

“It was one of those losses that you just don’t expect them to have. It was a close game, but where we evaluated it, we came out with Alabama ahead of Mississippi and South Carolina since Alabama and Mississippi both won head to head against South Carolina.”

As for why the committee felt Clemson deserved to move up from No. 17 to No. 12 in the rankings, Manuel said the committee was impressed by the way the Tigers bounced back with back-to-back road wins after the Louisville loss.

“Obviously they’re at 9-2, with only two losses. The teams right behind them have three losses,” he said. “We just felt, as a committee, as we looked at their body of work, with three straight wins after their loss to Louisville, including back-to-back wins against Virginia Tech and Pitt, that they deserved to move up into that 12th position.”