The path to making the College Football Playoff again for Arizona State is simple, but not easy:
Win the Big 12 again and you’re in.
Six experts from The Athletic picked the Sun Devils and six picked the Texas Tech Red Raiders to win the conference and earn a berth into the second-ever CFP.
ASU got the nod with two extra writers predicting the team will earn a berth as an at-large selection.
It should come as no surprise that the Big 12 has no consensus. Nobody got more than 21 percent of the conference championship vote in the most wide-open Power 4 conference, with Arizona State and Texas Tech coming out on top with just six of 28 votes each.
There is a narrow path for the Sun Devils to make the playoff without winning the conference.
The scenario likely requires having a zero or one loss in the regular season and losing in the Big 12 Championship to another team that has zero or one loss.
Many doubt that will happen based on the parity of the league.
The rest of the bracket from The Athletic
The projected bracket has the Sun Devils as the No. 11 seed facing No. 6 seed Notre Dame.
Texas, Clemson, Penn State, Ohio State, Georgia, LSU, Oregon, Alabama, Miami and Boise State round out the rest of the field.
Conference challengers Texas Tech and Kansas State were among the teams listed in the piece as the “First five out.”
In ESPN’s College Football Playoff projection, the Sun Devils face Alabama in the first round of the CFP.
