Bowl projections: Ohio State falls to No. 8 seed in College Football Playoff, SMU earns first-round bye

Saturday got off to a wild start with the game that had the greatest impact on this week’s College Football Playoff projections as No. 2 Ohio State coughed up a chance to play for the Big Ten title and earn a bye in the CFP in an ugly 13-10 loss to Michigan.

Despite the fact that the Wolverines are only 7-5, I don’t expect the Buckeyes to fall too far in the rankings because of the loss.  No. 10 Indiana is the absolute floor for them because of Ohio State’s dominant win over the Hoosiers just one week ago. However, I am projecting them to be ahead of 8th-ranked Tennessee as well, which is due to the fact that the Buckeyes have two top-10 wins, one of which came on the road.

In the SEC, No. 3 Texas won at No. 20 Texas A&M 17-7 as their rivalry was renewed for the first time in 13 years. The win put the Longhorns in the SEC Championship Game against No. 7 Georgia. The Bulldogs needed eight overtimes to beat Georgia Tech on Friday night, but their spot in the SEC title game had already been assured.

My CFP projection is based on a win by Georgia over Texas for the SEC title, which would give the Bulldogs the No. 2 seed. The Longhorns should not be hurt too badly if the game is competitive, but Georgia would definitely jump them.

The No. 1 seed in the CFP is projected to be Big Ten regular season champion Oregon. The top-ranked Ducks will now play No. 4 Penn State for the Big Ten title following Ohio State’s loss and the Nittany Lions’ win over Maryland. They win the tiebreaker with Indiana because of the conference records of their league opponents.

The Hoosiers remain projected to be the last team in following a 66-0 rout of Purdue in a game that was not as close as the score would indicate. Indiana needed a dominant win to try and protect its position against teams playing better opponents.

Quarterfinals

First round

The ACC also went through some upheaval as both No. 6 Miami and No. 12 Clemson lost. The difference is that the Hurricanes lost a conference game, which dropped them out of the ACC Championship Game. The Tigers will now be the opponent for No. 9 SMU, which completed an undefeated conference season with a 38-6 win over Cal.  

The Big 12 was unusually chalky on Saturday. The teams in control of their own fate for the conference title game both won. No. 16 Arizona State pummeled in-state rival Arizona 49-7, while No. 18 Iowa State took care of 24th-ranked Kansas State 29-21. This will be a one-bid league, although you will note that I do not have the champion projected as the last team in the field. That is one change this week.

I may make adjustments to these projections when the CFP rankings are released on Tuesday evening. Now that the regular season is over, teams that are not playing this week typically hold their spots relative to each other, so my changes would reflect that. The teams playing in championship games can move around some, of course. For example, if Ohio State is ahead of Tennessee this week, as I am projecting, they will likely be ahead next week as well, although some other team that is playing could jump in between.

Be sure to check back on Sunday morning for the full list of Jerry Palm’s bowl projections.