Bowl Projections 2014: Playoff Predictions After Important Week 12 Results
Technically, the College Football Playoff doesn’t start until Jan. 1, but every week is a playoff in this sport.
From the moment Lee Corso puts on the headgear in the morning on College GameDay until the final seconds tick off the clock in the late-night Pac-12 thrillers, few things in all of sports can match the drama of a college football Saturday in November.
We saw more of the same in Week 12 when 10 ranked teams lost and TCU and Florida State survived major scares from unranked foes. What’s more, Arizona State saw its championship hopes go up in flames in a trip to Oregon State.
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The playoff picture was once again flipped on its head. With that in mind, here is a look at some updated playoff projections.
Bowl Predictions
Sugar Bowl: No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 4 Baylor
Rose Bowl: No. 2 Florida State vs. No. 3 Oregon
Championship Bowl (in Arlington, Texas): TBD (semifinal winners)
Week 13 Playoff Game to Watch: Oklahoma State at Baylor
It is a testament to the lackluster Week 13 slate of games that Oklahoma State against Baylor is the matchup to watch. Sure, games between UCLA and USC, Minnesota and Nebraska and Arizona and Utah may be solid contests on paper, but none of those teams have a realistic chance to reach the playoffs.
Of the postseason contenders, Oregon plays Colorado, Florida State battles Boston College, Alabama takes on Western Carolina and Ohio State welcomes Indiana. That doesn’t exactly scream must-watch television, even if playoff spots will be hanging in the balance.
Oklahoma State turned some heads in the season opener when it nearly upset the defending champion Florida State Seminoles in a 37-31 loss.
After that, the Cowboys won five in a row and appeared to be a Big 12 contender heading into the meat of their schedule. Instead, they were crushed by TCU, West Virginia, Kansas State and Texas and have to win either at Baylor or at Oklahoma just to make a bowl game.
That is probably asking too much.
Baylor notched one of the most impressive and important wins of the entire college football season when it beat TCU 61-58. It followed that emotional win with a loss at West Virginia but bounced back two weeks later with a blowout victory over Oklahoma.
The biggest problem in this upcoming game for Oklahoma State will be Baylor’s powerful offense.
The Bears boast the No. 1 scoring offense in the country at 50.1 points a game and feature an incredibly balanced attack that forces the opposition to pick its poison. Baylor is No. 3 in passing yards per game and No. 24 in rushing yards per game.
Oklahoma State will counter that with a defense that is allowing an abysmal 30 points a game. The Cowboys haven’t even been close in any game since an Oct. 11 win over Kansas. This is just an uneven matchup any way you look at it.
On the other side, Baylor’s defense should be able to contain Oklahoma State’s offense.
It is a common assumption that the Bears cannot play defense because all they do is score, but they are actually 19th in the country in points allowed per game. That is even more impressive when you consider how quickly and often the offense scores, which forces the defense to be on the field for a large portion of the game.
Rather than wearing out and allowing significant chunks of points, Baylor’s defense has more than held its own every time out except in its 61-58 win over TCU.
The Oklahoma State offense it will face has been a train wreck in the last four games, which were all blowout losses. The Cowboys have not scored more than 14 points since that Oct. 11 game against Kansas and are 83rd in the nation in scoring offense.
Oklahoma State may garner more respect based on name recognition than some of the other opponents that playoff contenders are facing in Week 13, but this one will be over rather quickly.
The most important thing from this game will be the resultant playoff fallout, especially in the race between TCU and Baylor for positioning. Jonathan Smith of 97.1 The Fan and Jake Trotter of ESPN both had interesting perspectives on that, while Stewart Mandel of Fox Sports passed along a quote from selection committee member Jeff Long:
Get ready for more arguing because Baylor is not going to lose to Oklahoma State.
Prediction: Baylor 41, Oklahoma State 14
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