It was a dramatic weekend in college football during Week 13, featuring everything from historic blowouts, some incredible comebacks and a slew of thrilling close calls from top teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When it came to the race for the College Football Playoff though, not much changed as the entire top 14 in the most recent selection committee rankings all won or were off. Yet, there has been plenty of movement in the bowl system when it comes to looking ahead a few weeks toward Selection Sunday.<\/p>\n
Focusing on the playoff first, all eyes will be on the SEC given that nearly every spot beyond the top seed is based on it. Alabama, in both the Iron Bowl and the conference championship game, will be crucial to determining the ranking for Texas A&M on down. Should the Tide win the\u00a0 conference by beating the undefeated Aggies or go 2-of-2 against Georgia this season, it would likely result in Alabama hosting a first-round game and shifting Oregon, Mississippi and others further down the Top 25. If Kalen DeBoer\u2019s team loses in Atlanta, then the committee could have a very interesting decision with a 10\u20133 team compared to a slew of at-large candidates sporting the same number of wins.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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As for the Sooners, their regular-season finale against LSU is the hope all other at-large teams have of getting in the field. Vanderbilt, Miami, Utah and BYU will all be huge Tigers supporters on Saturday. Should Brent Venables\u2019s team win that one, then Oklahoma is in the field and will have an interesting discussion for the committee between the Sooners\u2019 body of work and that of a Notre Dame team which is playing like a top-four seed in running off 10 consecutive wins. The committee has not gotten into the r\u00e9sum\u00e9 minutia, so the Irish, for now, win the coin flip to host their first-round matchup against the Sooners\u2014something that could change as soon as Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, the bowl picture is also starting to come into clearer focus after a number of programs hit that magic number of six wins and a handful tripped up to force them further down the conference standings. Going into Thanksgiving, there are currently 72 bowl-eligible teams for a total of 82 spots, and there will be at least 20 teams with a shot to add their name to the list by Saturday night. Based on current projections, however, we are on pace to hit the precise number of teams for spots\u2014or potentially have one excess 6\u20136 program left out. That\u2019s not great news for the likes of Missouri State to make a bowl game in its first season in FBS or for Bill Belichick\u2019s North Carolina team to go bowling at 5\u20137.<\/p>\n
The weekend also shook up the bowl destinations quite a bit for several power conferences. Illinois\u2019s surprising loss to Wisconsin kicks the Illini to the Music City Bowl to face archrival Missouri. Iowa State has a good shot at eight wins and is in line to reach the Alamo Bowl against a USC team eyeing double-digit wins even with its setback against Oregon<\/a>. The Holiday Bowl could be a hard-nosed affair between Utah and Georgia Tech. Miami and Tennessee feel fairly certain to match up in the Gator Bowl. One cannot wait for the dichotomy between Kirk Ferentz and Iowa matching up against Diego Pavia and Vanderbilt in the ReliaQuest Bowl. Also, welcome back into the postseason picture to the likes of Penn State and Florida State (yes, really).\u00a0<\/p>\n Taking all that into account, here is how Sports Illustrated sees the playoff and all of 35 bowl games coming together to form the postseason picture in 2025\u201326 after Week 13.<\/p>\n Ohio StateTexas A&MIndianaGeorgia\u00a0Texas TechOregonMississippi\u00a0Notre Dame\u00a0Oklahoma\u00a0AlabamaSMUNorth Texas<\/p>\n Bowl<\/p>\n Date<\/p>\n Matchup<\/p>\n L.A. Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 13<\/p>\n Washington vs. San Diego State<\/p>\n Salute to Veterans Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 16<\/p>\n Marshall vs. Jacksonville State<\/p>\n Cure Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 17<\/p>\n James Madison vs. USF<\/p>\n 68 Ventures Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 17<\/p>\n Southern Miss vs. Central Michigan<\/p>\n Myrtle Beach Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 19<\/p>\n Appalachian State vs. FIU<\/p>\n Gasparilla Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 19<\/p>\n Florida State vs. UTSA<\/p>\n Potato Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 22<\/p>\n Miami (Ohio) vs. Fresno State<\/p>\n Boca Raton Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 23<\/p>\n Coastal Carolina vs. Louisiana Tech<\/p>\n New Orleans Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 23<\/p>\n Troy vs. Kennesaw State<\/p>\n Frisco Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 23<\/p>\n New Mexico vs. Toledo<\/p>\n Hawai\u2018i Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 24<\/p>\n Hawai\u2018i vs. Navy<\/p>\n Sports Bowl <\/p>\n Dec. 26<\/p>\n Northwestern vs. Ohio<\/p>\n Rate Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 26<\/p>\n Cincinnati vs. Minnesota<\/p>\n First Responder Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 26<\/p>\n Cal vs. UNLV<\/p>\n Military Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 27<\/p>\n Louisville vs. Memphis<\/p>\n Pinstripe Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 27<\/p>\n Penn State vs. Pitt<\/p>\n Fenway Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 27<\/p>\n Wake Forest vs. East Carolina<\/p>\n Pop-Tarts Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 27<\/p>\n BYU vs. Virginia<\/p>\n Arizona Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 27<\/p>\n Boise State vs. Western Michigan<\/p>\n New Mexico Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 27<\/p>\n Utah State vs. Louisiana<\/p>\n Gator Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 27<\/p>\n Miami vs. Tennessee<\/p>\n Texas Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 27<\/p>\n Houston vs. Washington State<\/p>\n Birmingham Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 29<\/p>\n NC State vs. Western Kentucky<\/p>\n Independence Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 30<\/p>\n TCU vs. Old Dominion<\/p>\n Music City Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 30<\/p>\n Illinois vs. Missouri<\/p>\n Alamo Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 30<\/p>\n Iowa State vs. USC<\/p>\n ReliaQuest Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 31<\/p>\n Iowa vs. Vanderbilt<\/p>\n Sun Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 31<\/p>\n Arizona vs. Clemson<\/p>\n Citrus Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 31<\/p>\n Michigan vs. Texas<\/p>\n Vegas Bowl<\/p>\n Dec. 31<\/p>\n Nebraska vs. Arizona State<\/p>\n Armed Forces Bowl<\/p>\n Jan. 2<\/p>\n Baylor vs. Tulane<\/p>\n Liberty Bowl<\/p>\n Jan. 2<\/p>\n Kansas State vs. LSU<\/p>\n Mayo Bowl <\/p>\n Jan. 2<\/p>\n Duke vs. UConn<\/p>\n Holiday Bowl<\/p>\n Jan. 2<\/p>\n Utah vs. Georgia Tech<\/p>\n More College Football from Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n Listen to SI\u2019s new college sports podcast, Others Receiving Votes, below or on Apple<\/a> and\u00a0Spotify<\/a>. Watch the show on SI\u2019s YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a dramatic weekend in college football during Week 13, featuring everything from historic blowouts, some incredible…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-304839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}