Texas A&M is playing nearly as well as any team in the nation at the moment, and the Aggies’ current College Football Playoff rankings reflect that, as Jimbo Fisher’s team currently rates as the No. 5 team in the nation.

While Texas A&M should be pleased with that elite ranking, two things stand in the Aggies’ way as the regular season is coming to a close in the days to come.

Alabama has already locked up the SEC West title, meaning the Aggies won’t be making their first trip to Atlanta for the league title game with the opportunity to add another big win to their resume, and this weekend’s Ole Miss game has been postponed and will likely be canceled.

So how does the College Football Playoff committee evaluate teams that are in this position?

Gary Barta, the College Football Playoff selection committee chairman for this season, was asked that question Tuesday evening following the latest release of the Playoff rankings.

“At the beginning of the year, the committee talked about the fact that 2020 was going to be a unique year, and so we were going to have to make sure that we were evaluating teams based on the information we had, that it would be a lot about watching all those games,” Barta said. “It always has been. But even more important than ever before, watching games and evaluating teams, knowing that we’re going to have to evaluate some teams that have different numbers of games played.

“The other thing that was different this year is there wasn’t as much inter-conference play, so we don’t have that comparator. It’s all included in the evaluation, and I’ve said a couple of times publicly, that has created problems, trying to evaluate teams with different numbers.

“But I’m proud of the committee, the way everybody has invested the time and put in the evaluation efforts, and so far, so good.”

It’s not an easy issue to correct, but at the end of the day, you have to believe winning as many as eight SEC games (which would constitute a perfect league record in a normal season) and only losing to the clear No. 1 team in the nation (Alabama) has to be helping Texas A&M’s cause as we inch closer to the Playoff.

Should Alabama win the SEC and a spot opens up in the Playoff field, it’s hard to see the Aggies being left out in that scenario.