Out with the old, in with the new.

The College Football Playoff has replaced the BCS as the FBS’s path to a national championship, and the process of selecting the title contenders has transitioned from an unforgiving formula to a selectively chosen playoff field.

The CFP selection committee released its fifth top 25 rankings Tuesday night on ESPN, and there are plenty of differences between that set of rankings and a recent BCS simulation (done courtesy of BCSKnowHow.com).

Take a look at how the top 16 teams from the newest CFP Poll stacks up against the top 16 teams from the BCS simulation and the most recent Associated Press Poll:

Ranking CFP Rankings AP Rankings BCS Simulation
1 Alabama Florida State Alabama
2 Oregon Alabama Florida State
3 Florida State Oregon Oregon
4 Mississippi State Mississippi State Mississippi State
5 TCU Baylor TCU
6 Ohio State TCU Baylor
7 Baylor Ohio State Ohio State
8 UCLA Georgia Georgia
9 Georgia UCLA UCLA
10 Michigan State Michigan State Michigan State
11 Arizona Kansas State Kansas State
12 Kansas State Arizona Arizona
13 Arizona State Arizona State Arizona State
14 Wisconsin Wisconsin Auburn
15 Auburn Auburn Wisconsin
16 Georgia Tech Georgia Tech Missouri

The table above may provide the top 16 teams from all three sets of rankings, but for now let’s just focus on the top 7 teams across the board.

The CFP, the BCS and the AP all feature the same seven teams atop their most recent rankings, and those seven teams happen to be the last remaining zero- or one-loss teams among the five power conferences. They’re also the seven most realistic contenders to reach the inaugural four-team playoff this winter.

However, the three sets of rankings differ in how they ordered those seven teams, and that’s where things start to get interesting.

The CFP’s selection committee came up with the same four-team playoff field this week as it did last week, and the BCS formula placed the same four teams atop the simulation with one minor difference. The BCS slotted unbeaten Florida State at No. 2 and one-loss Oregon at No. 3, while the CFP gave the Ducks an edge at No. 2 ahead of the Seminoles.

If we were still living in a college football world ruled by the BCS formula and a “two-team playoff,” debate would be running rampant over who’s more deserving of that No. 2 spot — an undefeated FSU team aiming to defend its national title or a one-loss team like Oregon with a much tougher strength of schedule.

The CFP stayed true to its word and favored the team with the superior body of work, while the BCS honored FSU’s zero in the loss column due to its inability to interpret the lack of quality in many of the Seminoles’ ACC victories.

Nevertheless, with a four-team playoff now in place, determining whether FSU or Oregon should be No. 2 really only decides who would call the coin toss in their potential semifinal matchup.

Regarding the hotly contested No. 4 spot in the rankings, the BCS formula came to the same conclusion as the CFP selection committee, placing Mississippi State at No. 4.

Many have wondered whether a one-loss conference champion from another power conference might jump Mississippi State for the final playoff spot if State ends the year as the runner-up in the SEC West. However, it seems the BCS and its objective evaluation of the teams under consideration also saw Mississippi State as a higher-quality team than the one-loss contenders sitting outside the top 4 — TCU, Ohio State and Baylor.

While we’re on the subject, let’s delve further into those three teams and the differences between how the selection committee and the BCS formula valued them.

The BCS was unkind to the Big Ten in recent years as the conference fell further and further into mediocrity, and the same would have held true this year if the BCS were still around. The formula slotted Ohio State at No. 7 in its rankings behind two one-loss teams from the Big 12, while the selection committee has had Ohio State ranked No. 6 for two straight weeks.

It seems the BCS formula is much more enamored with the depth of the Big 12 and its three top 12 teams, while the selection committee is willing to let OSU play its way into the top 4 with a Big Ten championship and plenty of “style points” along the way.

So although all three teams are firmly entrenched outside the top 4 in both sets of rankings, if any top 4 teams fall between now and Dec. 7 it appears Ohio State would be the greatest beneficiary of a move from the BCS formula to the CFP selection committee.

And on the off chance enough teams in the top 7 lose to merit a two-loss team reaching the top 4, it appears the CFP and the BCS disagree on who that two-loss team should be. The CFP slid UCLA up to No. 8 as its top two-loss contender, while the BCS gave the nod to Georgia, which isn’t even leading its own division within the SEC with one week left in the season.

Again it appears the BCS is smitten by the superior conference, while the CFP compared the two teams without considering conference affiliation. The SEC may be a great conference, but Georgia’s two losses did not come against great teams (South Carolina and Florida). UCLA’s two losses, however (to ranked Oregon and ranked Utah by a total of 14 points), could be seen as quality losses, which is likely why the selection committee gave the Bruins the edge.

For now, the only major difference between the old BCS system and the new CFP system is the growth of the playoff field from two teams to four. As far as the order of the rankings are concerned, there are only a few differences between the selection committee’s thought process and the BCS formula’s calculations.

With that said, five weeks in to the CFP era we are already beginning to see glaring differences in how these sets of rankings are formed, even if the results have remained eerily similar. The selection committee has valued body of work and game control, while the BCS values conference affiliation and objective win-loss records.

Depending on how things shake out in the next two weeks, those differences could loom large in determining who can compete for a national championship this winter, and who will be watching the playoff from home.