College Football Playoff, bowl projections after Week 12

The most compelling aspect of the College Football Playoff race at the moment may not be who will get into the 12-team field but who will be left out.

A logjam of two-loss SEC teams, including Tennessee, which joined the club after falling at Georgia on Saturday night, is presenting plenty of intrigue. How many of those two-loss SEC teams will make the cut? And how does a two-loss team in what is clearly the deepest conference in the country match up with a one-loss team from the top-heavy Big Ten, where signature wins are harder to come by?

Of course, there will be a home for all those teams during bowl season, but not necessarily one they had their sights set on in September.

In the new, expanded 12-team playoff, the five highest-ranked conference champions will make the field along with the next seven highest-ranked teams. The four highest-ranked conference champions will be awarded first-round byes, with the other eight teams meeting at the campus sites of the Nos. 5-8 seeds.

From there, the quarterfinals and semifinals will be played in what had been the New Year's Six bowls, with this season's national championship game scheduled for Jan. 20 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

All of that is just the tip of the iceberg, though. Apart from the playoff is the 36-game slate of bowls, from the Cricket Celebration Bowl on Dec. 14 to the Bahamas Bowl on Jan. 4.

We're here for all of it.

ESPN bowl gurus Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach are projecting every postseason matchup, including their breakdowns of how the CFP will play out, every week until the actual matchups are set on Selection Day (Dec. 8).

College Football Playoff

First-round games

Dec. 20-21 -- ABC/ESPN or TNT Sports*
Bonagura: No. 12 BYU at No. 5 Ohio State
Schlabach: No. 12 Boise State at No. 5 Ohio State