Bowl projections: SMU, Alabama vie for last College Football Playoff spot

It took some dramatic finishes and some blowouts for the smoke to clear on championship weekend and also clarify the situation for the College Football Playoff.

So who is making the 12-team field? Before we get to that, a reminder that this is a projection of how the committee will decide the field, not how it should look.

Let’s start with the easy part. Oregon, Georgia, Boise State and Arizona State will be the four conference champions earning byes. Clemson will be the No. 12 seed.

The first-round hosts also are easy to forecast with some seeding combination of Penn State, Notre Dame and Texas followed by Ohio State. Tennessee and Indiana locked in next.

Which brings us to the big question. Is SMU or Alabama the final team in?

We’ve been here before with the playoff. Trying to balance records and strength of schedule always is a challenge. And this year is more difficult because the expanded field forcing comparisons between teams playing in conference championship games and those sitting at home.

The Mustangs clearly have the better losses. They dropped two games against top 20 teams by a combined five points. They also lack high-end quality wins. That’s something the Crimson Tide have with defeats of Georgia, South Carolina and Missouri. They also have losses to a pair of 6-6 teams, including an ugly loss to Oklahoma just two weeks ago.

Conspiracy theorists will point to the power of the SEC and the brand of Alabama as deciding factors. How could the committee turn down the lure of the Crimson Tide facing Notre Dame or Penn State?

However, that’s not on their agenda. So the bet here is that the committee tries to protect a team that went unbeaten in its Power Four league and was three spots ahead in the most-recent rankings. It won’t want to set the precedent of having a three-loss team jump a team that lost its last game on a 56-yard field goal on the final play.

But we’ll see. And we’ll all be holding our breath until the announcement is made.

Notes: Legacy Pac-12 teams will fill the Pac-12 spots. Some conferences may not fulfill their bowl allotment. Asterisks denote a replacement pick. Bold indicates a team that has accepted a berth.