Bowl Predictions 2014: Updated Playoff Projections After Wild Week 11
Rest in peace to the College Football Playoff hopes of Michigan State, Kansas State, Notre Dame and probably Auburn.
All four of those squads lost their second game of the year in a landscape-shifting Week 11 and will likely fall behind a plethora of one-loss contenders when the next rankings come out. On the flip side, TCU, Arizona State and Ohio State all made impressive statements Saturday and remained squarely in the postseason hunt.
With all that in mind, here is a look at the updated playoff projections following a crazy Week 11 of college football action.
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Playoff Projections
Sugar Bowl: No. 1 Florida State vs. No. 4 TCU
Rose Bowl: No. 3 Oregon vs. No. 2 Alabama
Championship Bowl (in Arlington, Texas): TBD (Semifinal Winners)
Breakdown
Before we take a quick glance at the four-team field here, it is worth discussing the other contenders that just missed the cut.
Mississippi State is undefeated now, but that will not be the case all season. The Bulldogs will lose to Alabama yet still get a ton of postseason consideration given their SEC status and victories over Auburn and LSU. But the selection committee is going to put increased emphasis on conference championships.
In this scenario, the Bulldogs will lose to Alabama and not even win their division, let alone the conference.
Ohio State is certainly back in the picture as well after manhandling Michigan State in a revenge game for last season’s Big Ten championship tilt. The Buckeyes are starting to look like one of those talented teams that is putting it all together at the end of the season and that nobody wants to play.
However, that early loss to Virginia Tech is an absolute albatross on the resume. The five-loss Hokies are simply terrible.
Arizona State will lose in the Pac-12 Championship Game to Oregon, which will end its playoff hopes, and Baylor will lose to Kansas State in the season’s final game, which will give TCU the Big 12 crown and the final playoff spot.
Lindsay Schnell of Sports Illustrated discussed TCU’s road map to the College Football Playoff:
"There’s some thought that the Big 12’s lack of a conference championship game could come back and bite TCU, or Baylor, depending on which team wins the league. But consider this: The Horned Frogs already have wins over Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and West Virginia and have a more impressive nonconference schedule than Baylor. (Say what you want about Minnesota, but the Golden Gophers are 7-2.) And the Frogs don’t exactly have Murderers’ Row in November: TCU will finish the regular season with games at Kansas, at Texas and home against Iowa State.
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TCU will have no trouble dispatching Kansas, Texas and Iowa State in those final games, and Baylor losing to Kansas State would prove critical since the Bears beat the Horned Frogs in their head-to-head matchup.
TCU will play Florida State in these projections.
Simply put, the Seminoles are undefeated and will not lose to Miami, Boston College or Florida. The defending champions have been tested off and on all season but have emerged victorious in every game. The ACC is not strong enough to challenge Jameis Winston and Florida State, and an undefeated defending champ is absolutely getting into the field every time.
Alabama survived a serious scare at LSU on Saturday and will parlay that victory into an SEC championship run.
The Crimson Tide’s biggest step in the hunt for that title comes in a Week 12 showdown with Mississippi State, although they also have archrival Auburn at the end of the season. Both of those games are at home, which gives the Crimson Tide the advantage.
To his credit, Nick Saban only cares about what he can control in the playoff race (via Michael Casagrande of AL.com):
"To me, none of it matters. What does it matter? I mean, it only matters where you end up at the end. So what matters to us is how we do in each and every game that we have to play. We have four games left to play, and if we can be successful in those games, maybe there's a chance we will play in the SEC Championship Game as well.
None of it matters if we're not successful in our games. So I don't even care, to be honest with you. Don't know and don't care.
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That leaves Oregon, which got the luckiest break of all in Week 11 when Utah fumbled the ball going in on a clear touchdown that would have put the Utes up 14-0 early. Instead, Oregon picked the ball up and ran the length of the field to tie it at seven, and the rest was history.
The Ducks have quality wins over Michigan State, UCLA and Utah on their resume and shook the Stanford monkey from their back, even if the Cardinal are not good this year. There are only three games remaining for Oregon, and two come against lowly Colorado and Oregon State. The Buffaloes and Beavers are a combined 6-13 on the season.
Oregon will have to navigate the Pac-12 Championship Game against the eventual South Division winner. That will be Arizona State, which looked the part Saturday against Notre Dame.
However, the Sun Devils defense, which allowed 62 points to mobile Brett Hundley and the UCLA Bruins, doesn’t have the pieces to slow down potential Heisman winner Marcus Mariota.
Mariota will make sure in that game that the Ducks are getting into the playoff field.
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