Bowl projections: Colorado joins College Football Playoff field, Boise State earns a first-round bye

After flirting with disaster last week, BYU embraced it late Saturday night in a 17-13 loss at home to 4-6 Kansas. That result has given the College Football Playoff portion of the bowl projections an unexpected look. I now have Colorado winning the Big 12 over the Cougars, but I also have the Buffaloes topping out in the final rankings at No. 13. That is one spot below where I have projected Mountain West champion Boise State, which means the Broncos earn a first-round bye as they land at the No. 4 seed.

Colorado would still automatically qualify as the fifth highest-ranked conference champion and get seeded 12th in the CFP field.

However, BYU may be playing Iowa State back into the picture. The Cougars are at Arizona State this week, and a loss there could create a three-way tie for second at the end with the Cyclones and Sun Devils. Iowa State would win that and get to face Colorado for the Big 12 title.

That knocks a team off the bubble. Specifically, Ole Miss misses out in this projection, while Tennessee is the last team in the bracket.

The Volunteers joined the list of two-loss SEC teams after a 31-17 loss at Georgia. I will be curious to see how the CFP Selection Committee ranks them compared to the Rebels and Notre Dame this week. Barring an upset of one of those three teams in the last few weeks of the season, that order will likely stay the same going forward.

The Big Ten and SEC each have four teams in this week’s CFP projection with one each for the ACC, Big 12 and Mountain West, along with Notre Dame.

Coming up this week, we finally see Indiana get the test we have all been waiting for. It has taken 12 weeks, but the Hoosiers will finally face a team that is already bowl eligible when they travel to Ohio State. Indiana’s only chance to miss the playoff would be to get run out of the Horseshoe — which seems unlikely. Of course, the Hoosiers could put themselves in the Big Ten Championship Game with a win and the expected slaughter of rival Purdue the following week.

Quarterfinals

First round

The first conference championship game matchup of the season is set. Tulane’s 35-0 win over Navy on Saturday sets up an American Athletic Conference title game between the Green Wave and Army. The top seed hosts the championship game and there is no regular season head-to-head result, so it will likely come down to the final CFP rankings.

There are no teams projected to finish below .500 in Sunday’s bowl projections. There are 64 teams currently eligible for bowl games, which would make for a nice basketball tournament. Another 24 teams are one win away. We need 82 eligible teams to fill the bowls.

Don’t see your team? Check out Jerry Palm’s complete bowl projections.