Bowl projections: Alabama exits College Football Playoff field, Indiana remains among at-large teams

Throughout the season, I have been saying that 9-3 would not be good enough to get into the College Football Playoff. However, after Week 13, we now have two SEC teams with three losses that we were not expecting to be there.

Alabama took another stunning road loss, this time a 24-3 beatdown at Oklahoma. As much as the CFP Selection Committee loves themselves some Alabama, this may be one ugly loss too many, even for them as the Crimson Tide now have losses to the Sooners and Vanderbilt.

Ole Miss also likely coughed up a CFP berth on Saturday with a 24-17 loss at Florida. The Rebels may tumble farther than Alabama in this week’s rankings because they were benefitting from a head-to-head win over Georgia, a result the committee honored. Now, that won’t be necessary.

Speaking of Georgia, the Bulldogs clinched a spot in the SEC Championship Game, but not because of anything it did on Saturday. The Bulldogs were busy drubbing UMass while the chaos was happening all around. Georgia will face the winner of next week’s Texas vs. Texas A&M game in Atlanta.

Now in regards to the Aggies, they also picked up their third loss of the season in an epic 43-41, four-overtime defeat at Auburn. Texas A&M is done as an at-large team, although its chances were not great to begin with. Still, he Aggies can win the SEC championship and earn the automatic berth that goes with it. They just have to beat Texas and Georgia along the way. Piece of cake, right?

I have Alabama as the first team out of the projected College Football Playoff bracket. SMU, the expected ACC runner-up, is projected as the last team in the field, while Clemson is another contender for that spot. I will be very interested to see what the committee does with Alabama in the rankings this week.

The most anticipated game of the week went badly for fifth-ranked Indiana, which lost at Ohio State 38-15. That was an early game before all of the chaos mentioned above. Still, I believed after the game that the Hoosiers would probably stay in playoff contention, and that position seems more secure at the end of the day. We will now have to wait and see on Tuesday how the selection committee feels about them.

Quarterfinals

First round

In the ever chaotic Big 12, Arizona State knocked off BYU 28-23, guaranteeing that the conference champion will have at least two losses. Because of that, there is a distinct possibility that the Big 12 champ will not get a bye in the CFP. Colorado lost at Kansas for its third loss of the season and second in conference play. Iowa State won as well, creating a four-way tie for first. All four teams figure to be favored next week, and should all win next week, Arizona State and Iowa State would play for the title.

Notre Dame completed a sweep of our military academies with a 49-14 win over previously unbeaten Army. The Fighting Irish handed Navy its first loss of the season on Oct. 26 by a 51-14 score.  

For the first time since 2021, I have too many teams projected to be bowl eligible. Back then, the NCAA approved a game called the Frisco Football Classic — not to be confused with the annual Frisco Bowl — as a one-off bowl game so that all of the eligible teams could participate in the postseason. There are currently 77 eligible teams for 82 spots.  If more than that qualify for the postseason, look for the powers that be to possibly try and create a game again for the extra teams.

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