Bowl Projections 2015: Top Four CFP Predictions After Week 12
Survive and advance. That's the name of the game at this point in the College Football Playoff race.
Three of the Top Four teams heading into Week 12 were able to do it. Clemson, Alabama and Notre Dame still have some autonomy over whether they'll get a chance to play for the national championship.
Ohio State, however, fell the first time it played a ranked opponent this season. This late in the season with the schedule it's played, a 17-14 loss to Michigan State is likely to put it out of the playoff hunt.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Teams like Notre Dame, however, showed the importance of surviving. The Irish faced a unique challenge in a 3-7 Boston College team that boasts one of the nation's best defenses and worst offenses. It wasn't pretty, but the Irish walked away with a three-point win over the Eagles that keeps their hopes alive.
It might not be enough to get them in, but they are still squarely in the conversation. Here's the projected field after the dust settled on Week 12:
| Orange Bowl | No. 1 Clemson vs. No. 4 Oklahoma |
| Cotton Bowl | No. 2 Alabama vs. No. 3 Michigan State |
Bubble Teams
Michigan State Spartans
No one was a bigger winner on Saturday than the Michigan State Spartans. When Mark Dantonio's squad lost to Nebraska two weeks ago, it felt like its playoff hopes were dead on arrival in Columbus.
Leaving Columbus with a 17-14 win, the mood's all changed.
Sparty took to the road and looked like an entirely different football team. B/R's Brian Leigh noted the difference for Michigan State defensively:
The men from East Lansing took advantage of their only opportunity to get back in the playoff hunt. Now they control their own destiny in the Big Ten. A win over Penn State puts them in the conference championship game against Iowa.
If the Spartans end the season as conference champions with a win over last year's tournament winner, they're practically a lock to make it in.
Oklahoma Sooners
Oklahoma is the perfect example of a team that kept its playoff hopes alive simply by surviving a scare.
The Sooners appeared to have plenty of "game control" when they led the TCU Horned Frogs 30-13 in the third quarter. Then quarterback Baker Mayfield went out of the game. Then the TCU offense found some rhythm behind backup quarterback Bram Kohlhausen.
The next thing Bob Stoops' team knew, it had to defend a two-point conversion attempt by TCU to hang on for the 30-29 win with 51 seconds left.
It's the kind of win that might not impress the committee in and of itself, but it sets the team up to make a statement next week. The Sooners will be involved in one of the biggest games of the week when College GameDay comes to cover their 8 p.m. ET matchup with Oklahoma State:
The matchup isn't quite as prolific now that Oklahoma State lost to Baylor, but the Sooners' win over Baylor looks that much better now. Add a win over the Cowboys, and it's awfully difficult to leave Oklahoma out.
Iowa Hawkeyes
A conspicuous exclusion from this playoff field is Iowa. The Hawkeyes are undefeated at this point in the season, but they've played a schedule that demands they go undefeated to get in.
As Lost Lettermen notes, Iowa is one of three teams that truly control their own destiny:
With a matchup against Michigan State on the horizon, that's far from guaranteed. Realistically, Nebraska could even be the team that upsets the Iowa apple cart. The Cornhuskers kicked off November with the win over Michigan State and followed that up with a 31-14 win over Rutgers.
It's safe to say they're playing their best football of the year.
As great a story as Iowa has been this season, one has to wonder if and when the other shoe is going to drop. The Hawkeyes came into the week ranked just No. 23 in Football Outsiders' F/+ metric. For comparison, Sparty was No. 15 before beating Ohio State. Eventually, that has to catch up with the Hawkeyes.
If it doesn't in the next two games, they'll get the opportunity to prove everyone wrong in the playoff.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish
The Irish are the closest facsimile to TCU last season.
Their only loss was by the narrowest of margins against the nation's elite. They dropped a two-point game to No. 1 Clemson. Yet, they're likely to get passed over for a team that participated in a conference championship game.
The Irish don't play in a conference; their best wins are against Temple and Navy, who happen to be in the Group of Five rather than the Power Five. Unfortunately, they don't have much margin for error.
That means when you play a team that's 3-7, you have to impress. Notre Dame didn't exactly do that against the Eagles. It committed five turnovers against an admittedly excellent defense and won 19-16.
Given the committee's precedent of dropping teams that don't win impressively (TCU dropped three spots after a six-point win over Kansas last week), Notre Dame survived Week 12 but hurt its chances along the way.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
