College Football Bowl Predictions 2014: Updated Playoff Projections and Odds
It becomes clearer with each passing Saturday that the race for the College Football Playoff is really just a race for the No. 4 seed as long as Alabama, Florida State and Oregon continue to win.
Of course, the Seminoles have made winning look anything but easy (and they once again won in nail-biting fashion Saturday against Florida), but winning is the bottom line in this sport.
Just ask Mississippi State.
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The Bulldogs lost the Egg Bowl to archrival Ole Miss Saturday and saw their playoff hopes go up in smoke. That opened the door for Ohio State, TCU or Baylor to sneak in, depending on the Week 15 results.
With that in mind, read on to see my latest bowl projections and some national championship odds from Odds Shark.
Scott Polacek's Playoff Projections
Sugar Bowl: No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 4 Ohio State
Rose Bowl: No. 2 Oregon vs. No. 3 Florida State
Championship Bowl (in Arlington, Texas): TBD (semifinal winners)
Odds Shark National Championship Odds
| Alabama | 19/10 |
| Florida State | 15/2 |
| Oregon | 77/20 |
| Ohio State | 6/1 |
| Baylor | 8/1 |
| TCU | 8/1 |
*Odds to win national championship courtesy of Odds Shark, as of Sunday morning at 3 a.m. ET.
Race for No. 4 Seed
Ole Miss did the Buckeyes, Horned Frogs and Bears a major favor Saturday when it beat Mississippi State. It also assured that there will only be one SEC team in the College Football Playoff, assuming Alabama dispatches a Missouri team that lost to Indiana earlier this season.
Ohio State is right in the thick of the race for the No. 4 seed, although it is at something of a crossroads now.
On the one hand, the Buckeyes beat their archrival Michigan yet again Saturday and look like a completely different team than the one that lost to Virginia Tech in the second game of the year.
They are undefeated in Big Ten play and boast perhaps the single most impressive win from any team on the season when they went into Michigan State and destroyed a Top 10 Michigan State squad on the road and under the lights in front of a raucous crowd.
However, there is a dark cloud hovering over the team’s playoff hopes now that quarterback J.T. Barrett is out for the season with a broken ankle.
It is rather unfair for the Buckeyes, considering they lost Braxton Miller before the year started along with their speedster Dontre Wilson, who suffered a broken foot. If you throw in Noah Spence’s season-long suspension and Rod Smith's dismissal, the list of missing players from Ohio State could probably win the SEC East.
Two questions now remain for the Buckeyes.
How will the selection committee treat them moving forward, given the loss of Barrett? More importantly, will this team be able to beat a potential top-12 team in Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship without Barrett?
Pat Forde of Yahoo Sports had an interesting theory on the initial question:
Of course, a rather straightforward counter argument would suggest that there are only five players on the basketball floor at once and a star has far more impact than any one of 11 players on the football field. That is especially the case given the amount of talent Ohio State boasts in the skill positions.
Tight end Jeff Heuerman suggested as much, via Doug Lesmerises of Cleveland.com, "There's 21 other starters on this team that battled and played all year to get where we are now. I'm sure they'll take that into account, too."
Outside of the Buckeyes, the only teams with a realistic shot at the No. 4 seed hail from the Big 12 after Georgia and UCLA both lost in Week 14.
TCU and Baylor represent an interesting case study into how the selection committee will operate in its first year.
The Horned Frogs have a tougher schedule and arguably a more impressive resume from top to bottom, but the Bears beat TCU in a head-to-head matchup earlier in the season. Which factor should be given more importance is a legitimate question if there is a significant gap in the resumes, but if Baylor beats Kansas State Saturday, the difference in strength of schedule becomes much smaller.
After all, TCU and Baylor played the same teams in the Big 12, but TCU did beat Minnesota in the nonconference portion of its schedule.
The real problem for both is that they will be conference co-champions and have one less game than the 12-1 Buckeyes if all three teams win out. The selection committee should certainly consider the fact that the Buckeyes, who would be outright Big Ten champions as well, had to win an extra game against a dangerous Wisconsin team.
That would give them a much-needed month off before the playoffs to lick their wounds.
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