LWOS Bowl Projections (Through Week 12)

How does Michigan State's upset of Ohio State affect our bowl projections through week 12? And will there be 80 bowl eligible teams when all is set and done?

Our bowl projections will certainly look quite a bit different at the top this week. With Ohio State falling at home to Michigan State, their chances at repeating as CFP National Champions have likely ended barring massive chaos. The Spartans, on the other hand, have greatly improved their odds at getting selected for the semifinals with the upset win in Columbus.

That fact is reflected in both of our CFP projections after week 12’s play, with both John and Yesh having Sparty in. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how the committee values MSU’s overall body of work relative to other one-loss teams in Tuesday’s rankings. Specifically, will it be Notre Dame, Oklahoma or MSU in that coveted fourth spot where the Buckeyes emerged from to win it all in 2014?

Now both of us are assuming Michigan State defeats Iowa in the Big Ten Championship in two weeks time. The 11-0 Hawkeyes are currently ahead of MSU in the CFP rankings and certainly stand to benefit from OSU’s loss, much like the Spartans obviously. All in all, this will undoubtedly sort itself out over the final few weeks of the college football season.

Of course, another major issue surrounding the bowls is what to do if there aren’t enough teams with 6-6 records or better. Given that there are 40 games and subsequently 80 slots available, that certainly remains a real possibility.

As of right now, 71 FBS teams are at six or more wins with an additional 15 just a victory away at five. Of those 15 schools, all but one have just a single game left on the schedule. What to do if nine more can’t get that .500 or better threshold?

The NCAA has said they would use programs’ Academic Progress Rate (APR) to fill bowl slots if need be. However, confusion surfaced on Monday when a report by CBS Sports indicated the organization’s Football Oversight Committee was planning to hold a conference call to make a final decision on the matter. The report detailed that a possible outcome would be that only schools in the top five of the APR rankings would be eligible.

That’s a bit of a problem this year since Wisconsin, Duke, Stanford, Michigan and Northwestern make up the five schools with the best APR scores. All five are bowl eligible as we speak. The highest ranked school at five wins, Nebraska, is currently sixth in APR. Might the bowls be allowed to go down the list until all bowl slots are filled?

If so, these are the schools John and Yesh believe will be invited to bowls at 5-7. Their APR score and ranking will be listed in parentheses.

Nebraska (985, T-6), Rutgers (980, T-12), Washington (977, T-16), Kansas State (976, T-21), Missouri (976, T-21), Minnesota (975, T-23)

Those schools will also have an asterisk next to their name in our projections to indicate they’re qualifying via APR.

With that lengthy explanation out of the way, let’s get to the nitty gritty and reveal our updated bowl projections. Where do we have your school going for the holidays? Find out below!