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Your Week 12 College Football Bowl Projections

There was a big shakeup this week as Clemson, Michigan, and Washington all lost.
Photo by Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

We're getting close to bowl season, and the college football bowl game landscape is starting to take shape. Yes, it's not even Thanksgiving yet, but it's officially okay to be thinking about this now. So:

What looked like one of the least exciting weeks of the year instead shook up the college football world more than any other week this season. No. 2 Clemson, No. 3 Michigan, and No. 4 Washington all lost last week, bringing one-loss teams Louisville and Ohio State back into the College Football Playoff picture. Even though the Cardinals and Buckeyes are unlikely to win their own divisions, the selection committee will have to decide whether each team would be worthy of a Playoff spot at 11-1.

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The bowl selection process has changed in the past three years, with the advent of the College Football Playoff and New Year's Six bowls, and conferences now have a greater say in the bowl pecking order than they did before.

The top four teams go to the Playoff, regardless of conference, and the remaining New Year's Six bowls are filled out with conference tie-ins and at-large bids. All bowls have conference tie-ins, but those are broken when conferences can't fill all of their slots; here's a good look at the tie-in and selection process. Teams have to be at least 6-6 to make a bowl, but if there aren't enough 6-6 teams to fill all the slots, 5-7 teams are selected based on their Academic Progress Rate. Yes, it's complicated. But it's happening.

Here's how we see things playing out thus far.