Clemson is 8-2 and ranked No. 17 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings, but would more than likely be left out of the 12-team field without some help late in the regular season.

The ACC will probably get only one team in the playoff — likely either SMU, Miami or Clemson — barring some chaos elsewhere. Meanwhile, the latest edition of the CFP rankings released Tuesday had four teams each from the SEC and Big Ten in the projected playoff bracket, leaving only four spots for the other eight FBS conferences and major independents.

Appearing on CBS Sports HQ on Saturday, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney lamented the current set-up that apparently does not take his program’s history of success into account. The Tigers face non-conference opponents The Citadel and South Carolina, then must hope that either Miami or SMU loses at least once so they can get into the ACC title game and possibly secure a playoff spot.

“We’ve got a chance to get a ninth win today for the 14th year in a row and become only the fourth team in the history of (college) football to do that — ever,” Swinney said. “We just try to stay consistent, control what we can control and let (media) sit around and talk about all that.

“… All I know is, we’ve been in four national championships, we’ve won two of them. We’ve got the second-most playoff wins. We’ve won eight league titles in the last 12 years.”

Clemson’s two losses this year — vs. Georgia in the season-opener and at home to Louisville on Nov. 2 — are comparable to those suffered by two-loss teams such as Alabama (which lost to Tennessee and Vanderbilt) and Ole Miss (Kentucky and LSU). However, the ACC does not get the benefit of the doubt from the playoff committee that the SEC and Big Ten do.

“We’ve scheduled tough,” Swinney said. “All you can do is play the schedule that you have. It is what it is. We basically have an SEC-Big Ten invitational; that’s basically what we’ve got in college football. So you’ve just got to focus on what you’ve got.”

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Clemson hosts The Citadel at 2:30 p.m., with television coverage on The CW.