CLEMSON — Clemson knows its College Football Playoff fate. If the Tigers win, they are in. If they lose, they are out. It is that simple.

Clemson will face No. 8 SMU Saturday in the ACC Championship Game with a trip to the CFP on the line. The Tigers fell to No. 17 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings on Tuesday.

However, can they move up in next week’s final CFP rankings and earn an automatic bye into the quarterfinals or will they start the playoffs on the road?

CFP Chairman Warde Manuel said during Tuesday’s teleconference that teams that are currently ranked and their season is over, cannot jump or fall behind other teams that are finished.

“If you take, for example, Tennessee is ahead of SMU, Indiana is behind SMU. Tennessee will not drop below Indiana at any point. Neither team is playing,” Ward said. “But SMU could move up, depending on how we evaluate the (ACC Championship) game. They could stay where they are or they could move down depending on the outcome of the game.

“But Tennessee and Indiana in this example would never flip. Indiana would never move ahead of Tennessee and Tennessee would never drop below Indiana because we’ve already evaluated them. There’s not another datapoint because they’re not playing in the championship games. So we don’t have anything else to add to the evaluation of those teams, so we can’t move them above or below each other.”

However, team’s like Clemson and SMU, who are playing in conference championship games, do have opportunities to move up and fall down.

“If they drop out (of the top 11) if they lose, I’m not sure,” Warde said when asked about SMU. “What we’ll do is evaluate them in the performance, again, watching the game, having high regard for those teams who are playing. There are 18 teams that are playing this weekend, and we will be watching all of them and evaluating the results of those games, and we’ll see how they move, if they move at all, as I referenced on the interview on ESPN.

“Two years ago TCU lost and stayed at (No.) 3 in that particular year, and so those things can happen. People can lose and maybe stay where they are. They can move as we have done in other years and go down big or they can go down just a little. It just depends on the outcome of the game.”

Warde would not commit to saying a Clemson win over the Mustangs in Saturday’s ACC Championship Game will be enough to move the Tigers past the winner of the Big 12 Championship Game. Though the top five ranked conference champions earn an automatic berth into the CFP, only the top four conference champions get a bye to the quarterfinals.

Currently, the Big Ten and SEC are ranked No. 1 and 2, while the ACC (SMU) is ranked third. The Mustangs (11-1, 8-0 ACC) are the highest ranked ACC team.

Because Boise State is ranked No. 10 in the CFP, the Mountain West Conference is ranked ahead of the Big 12 in the standings heading into Championship Weekend. Arizona State, the Big 12’s highest ranked team, is No. 15 in the rankings.

If Clemson (9-3, 7-1 ACC) wins on Saturday night (8 p.m., ABC), will a win be enough for the Tigers to jump the winner of the Arizona State-Iowa State game? The Cyclones are ranked No. 16 in the rankings.

“There was a lot of conversation between those teams and how we ranked them, a lot of back and forth and a lot of discussion,” Ward said. “Obviously they’re in the championship game, and should they win, they’ll earn — should earn an automatic berth into the playoffs.

“What I can’t do is tell you where they’ll be ranked if that happens and they beat SMU. I can’t get into, sort of, evaluating what could happen. We just try to stay in the present and not look to the future as we evaluate what each team has done during the season, and we look forward to watching Clemson and SMU play on the field, and then we’ll evaluate both teams once that game is done.”

If the Tigers win the ACC Championship Game, it should make for an interesting Sunday morning for the selection committee. The final rankings and seeds will be announced Sunday afternoon.