Below, we’re keeping track of each top-25 game’s impact, both before and after final scores, mostly paying attention to CFP committee business, not highlights and stuff. And because there are only a few games, this week, let’s throw in every other FBS game too. Here are the bowl projections to use as a starting point ahead of all this.
How Championship Weekend’s games changed bowl season
Keeping track of every FBS game, with updated notes as each goes final.
Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
Remember the things the committee has mostly demonstrated it rewards: wins over final top-25 teams, wins over bowl teams, road wins, dominant wins, weirdly excusable losses, being Alabama, and not being a mid-major. It does not care what your opponent’s ranking was at kickoff.
Final scores in bold. All rankings CFP.
Important
Games that will decide a major bowl bid, for example.
- SEC Championship — No. 1 Alabama 35, No. 4 Georgia 28: The debate before this game: is Bama in regardless? The debate after this astounding game: is GEORGIA in regardless? The only team to challenge No. 1 all year, which has whooped almost every team it’s faced, is probably one of the four best, right? I think it’s Oklahoma in the Playoff, though.
- ACC Championship — No. 2 Clemson 42, Pitt 10: To the Orange Bowl as the No. 2 seed.
- No. 3 Notre Dame: Waiting to book travel to Dallas or Miami.
- Big 12 Championship — No. 5 Oklahoma 39, No. 14 Texas 27: OU avenged its (close, statistically fluky) loss, and now the Sooners have a good Playoff case, in my opinion. If OU makes the Playoff, then Texas is in the Sugar Bowl.
- Big Ten Championship — No. 6 Ohio State 45, No. 21 Northwestern 24: A nice performance, but I doubt those are enough Style Points to get Ohio State into the Playoff.
- AAC Championship — No. 8 UCF 56, Memphis 41: Knights back in the New Year’s Six bowls, either the Peach or Fiesta.
- Pac-12 Championship — No. 11 Washington 10, No. 17 Utah 3: The Pac-12 champ clinches a Rose bid against either Ohio State, Michigan, or Northwestern.
- Mountain West Championship — No. 25 Fresno State 19, No. 22 Boise State 16 in OT: Since UCF won, this was for the Las Vegas Bowl.
Maybe important
Games that could change bowl season, even if it’s just by significantly altering another team’s resume.
- No. 23 Iowa State 27, Drake 24: There’s a real argument for this seemingly meaningless game knocking ISU out of the rankings and thus hurting the whole Big 12 in the committee’s eyes. Drake is a non-scholarship team, one of the worst in Division I, and entered as a 41-point underdog.
- Stanford 23, Cal 13: The rescheduled rivalry game could help swing a lower-tier Pac-12 bowl.
- Virginia Tech 41, Marshall 20: VT’s newly nation-leading bowl streak extends to 26 years, knocking some lower-tier non-power out of a bowl bid.
- Conference USA Championship — UAB 27, Middle Tennessee 25: The C-USA champ gets its pick from among the conference’s bowl ties, but I’m guessing UAB would prefer to host the Birmingham Bowl, capping a season of pretty promising home attendance.
- MAC Championship — NIU 30, Buffalo 29: Mobile’s Dollar General Bowl against a top Sun Belt team is sort of the traditional destination for MAC champs, but we’ll see.
- Sun Belt Championship — Appalachian State 30, UL Lafayette 19: The Sun Belt recently announced its champ gets the New Orleans Bowl, and its loser gets the Cure.
Probably not important
Losing a big upset here could hurt your bowl standing, sure. Try not to do that!
- NC State 58, East Carolina 3
- South Carolina 28, Akron 3
- Liberty 52, Norfolk State 17: Liberty could theoretically have bowl eligibility with a two-FCS-games waiver, but don’t expect a bid.
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