The College Football Playoff (CFP) selection committee is set to release its first rankings of the year Tuesday night. As such, it will give fans of the nation’s top teams their first glance at to where they stand in terms of their chances of finishing in those coveted semifinal spots. It will also give John and Yesh as well as our hard-working pollsters who contribute weekly to the LWOS Top 25 an indication as to how their prognostications of the top four compare to the committee’s.
Much like our bowl projections, the CFP selectors are essentially giving a snapshot of where they see the field at this point. Obviously, a lot is going to happen between now and when their final rankings come out in early December. Some teams are going to stumble and that will give others the opportunity to vault themselves into national championship consideration. It happens every year and there is no reason to believe it’s not going to take place once again in 2015.
Regarding the New Year’s Six bowls, you will notice both of us are projecting a potentially mouth-watering clash between Notre Dame and Michigan State. Conference realignment has led to a lot of great college football rivalries being discontinued (even though the Irish and Spartans are scheduled to play for the next few years) and I think it would behoove these bowl committees and the schools involved to make them happen wherever possible in the postseason.
The highest ranked Group of Five school gets an appearance in a New Year’s Six bowl, and there’s a bit of disagreement between us over who will inevitably be. John expects Memphis to maintain their current positioning, while Yesh believes Houston will overcome them. The two will have a chance to duel it out on the field on November 14th in likely the biggest game of the year involving non-Power Conference programs.
It should be noted that with 40 bowls and subsequently 80 possible slots, it may be impossible to fill them all with 6-6 or better teams. Should that happen, the NCAA has a contingency plan for bowls to invite teams who finish 5-7 and have performed well in the classroom as is indicated by their APR score for academic year 2013-14. For this reason, we’ve decided to list schools who, based on their current record, are projected by the two of us to qualify for a bowl in this manner with their APR number in parentheses.
Rutgers (980), Indiana (977), Kansas State (976), Illinois (973), Auburn (968)
Those schools will have an asterisk by their names in our projections below.
Anyways, where do we have your school heading for the holidays? Find out below!
Note: all games are on ESPN unless otherwise noted.
College Football Playoff
New Year’s Six Bowls
Rest of the Bowls
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