Bowl Predictions 2014: Updated College Playoff Projections Before Week 14

We are in unprecedented territory in college football, and the initial College Football Playoff is the overarching storyline hovering over every single game.

Questions about style points, strength of schedule, quality losses, the value of conference championships and more have framed the overall discussion about where teams should be ranked and when they should make a jump or take a fall. 

Now all that is left for playoff contenders is winning one or two more games before the real campaigning begins. With that in mind, read on for a look at the latest playoff projections from StatMilk, the updated national championship chances from Odds Shark and my own playoff picks before digging a bit deeper into the latest poll release.

(Note: As the table header indicates, the logo shown at the far right of each team's row is for that team's next opponent and not for the ranked team itself.)

StatMilk and Odds Shark Playoff Projections and Odds

Team	Odds
Alabama	19-10
Oregon	77-20
Florida State	15-2
Ohio State	7-1
Mississippi State	10-1
Baylor	8-1
TCU	8-1
UCLA	50-1

*Odds to win national championship courtesy of Odds Shark, as of Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. ET.

Scott Polacek Playoff Projections

Sugar Bowl: No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 4 Ohio State

Rose Bowl: No. 2 Florida State vs. No. 3 Oregon   

Championship Bowl (in Arlington, Texas): TBD (semifinal winners)

Poll Breakdown

Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

The new College Football Playoff poll was released on Tuesday, and the top seven remained unchanged.

One thing is abundantly clear, though. Alabama, Florida State and Oregon are all heading to the playoffs if they win their remaining games. It is also fairly clear that the Ducks and Seminoles are going to play each other in the semifinals in that scenario because the Crimson Tide aren’t giving up their death grip on that No. 1 seed if they win the SEC.

There was an important development lower in the poll when Ole Miss dropped all the way to No. 19. The Rebels are out of the playoff race, but they represent Mississippi State’s final opponent and a chance at securing a marquee win.

However, teams like Kansas State (No. 12), Michigan State (No. 10), Wisconsin (No. 14) and even Minnesota (No. 18) continue to rise in the rankings, which bolsters the chances of the other contenders for the No. 4 seed.

Kansas State is the carrot dangling at the end of the Baylor schedule, Michigan State is Ohio State’s best win (the argument can be made that is the best win for anyone in the country considering it came on the road at night by a multi-score margin) and Minnesota lost to both TCU and Ohio State.

Jeff Gammons/Getty Images

What’s more, Wisconsin and Minnesota are even more important because one of those teams will be Ohio State’s opponent in the Big Ten Championship Game.

Meanwhile, Mississippi State will be left on the outside looking in at the SEC Championship Game, and that final potential win over Ole Miss will not look nearly as good as it would have earlier in the season. The Rebels have lost three SEC games, and that would mark four in this hypothetical.

To make matters worse, other marquee Mississippi State wins like Auburn (No. 15 now and will be lower after it loses to Alabama) and LSU (unranked) have lost much of their steam. In fact, both Tigers teams have lost their last four combined SEC games.

Stacy Revere/Getty Images

Despite the current No. 4 position, Mississippi State could be in the worst spot of all the contenders except TCU since the Buckeyes have the chance to be Big Ten outright champs, and the Bears have that game with Kansas State on the horizon and the head-to-head win over the Horned Frogs in their back pocket.

Future projections are more important than the current polls, and Jeff Long (chairman of the selection committee) hinted at that, via Ben Axelrod of Bleacher Report: "We try not to look into the future, but we've always said that championships won on selection weekend will have an impact. It will certainly add to [Ohio State's] body of work if they have that Big Ten championship."

Something else to watch out for on the bottom of the poll is the race between Marshall (No. 24) and Boise State (No. 23) for the designation as the highest-ranked team outside of the Power Five conferences. There is an automatic bid into a selection committee bowl game waiting for the highest one at end of season, and the two-loss Broncos are in an ideal spot.

Boise State lost to Air Force and Ole Miss but has been rewarded for playing a more difficult schedule than the undefeated Thundering Herd.

Another interesting development in the poll is the status of UCLA as the playoff dark horse. The Bruins are No. 8 and the highest-ranked of the two-loss teams, largely because of their schedule, as ESPN Stats & Info noted:

If the Bruins win out, that would mean a monster victory over Oregon in the Pac-12 title game. Depending on what happens with the rest of the one-loss squads, the Bruins could position themselves nicely for a playoff spot with wins over Oregon, USC, Arizona and Arizona State, and the boost that comes with being a major conference champion. 

It is not that difficult to envision a Kansas State win over Baylor, a Wisconsin win over Ohio State or even a Georgia Tech win over Florida State. If any of that happened, the playoffs could have a Los Angeles flavor at the end of the season.

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