College football bowl projections, Week 11: Alabama-FSU and all 34 other games

We have a new BCS National Championship Game, and Oregon's loss to Stanford rearranges things for three other power conferences as well.

By Jason Kirk Nov 10, 2013, 11:08am EST

If Alabama and Florida State win out, they'll meet in Pasadena. Unless FSU somehow struggles with all of its weak schedule down the stretch and Baylor, Ohio State or Stanford puts together a streak of colossal blowouts, the unbeaten 'Noles will meet the Tide. And even in that unlikely scenario, FSU should be fine.

Updated bowl projections, with explanations and notes on the rest of the fallout below -- as always, let me know what you think in the comments.

	Bowl	Matchup (not always tied to conference standings)	Team	Team
1/6/2014	BCS National Championship (Pasadena)	BCS 1 vs. BCS 2	Alabama	Florida State
1/3/2014	Orange (Miami)	Florida State replacement vs. At-large 1	Clemson	Oregon
1/2/2014	Sugar (New Orleans)	Alabama replacement vs. At-large 2	Auburn	UCF
1/1/2014	Rose (Pasadena)	Pac-12 1 vs. Big Ten 1	Ohio State	Stanford
1/1/2014	Fiesta (Glendale, AZ)	Big 12 1 vs. At-large 3	Baylor	Fresno State
1/5/2014	GoDaddy (Mobile, AL)	MAC 2 vs. Sun Belt 2	Ball State	Western Kentucky
1/4/2014	BBVA Compass (B'ham)	SEC 9 vs. AAC 5	Vanderbilt	Rutgers
1/3/2014	Cotton (Arlington)	Big 12 2 vs. SEC 3	Oklahoma State	Missouri
1/1/2014	Capital One (Orlando)	Big Ten 2 vs. SEC 2	Wisconsin	Texas A&M
1/1/2014	Gator (Jacksonville)	Big Ten 4 vs. SEC 6	Minnesota	Ole Miss
1/1/2014	Heart of Dallas	Big Ten 7 vs. Big 12 8	Iowa	Notre Dame*
1/1/2014	Outback (Tampa)	Big Ten 3 vs. SEC 4	Michigan State	LSU
12/31/2013	Chick-fil-A (Atlanta)	ACC 2 vs. SEC 5	Virginia Tech	South Carolina
12/31/2013	Independence (Shreveport)	SEC 10 vs. ACC 7	ULM*	Pitt
12/31/2013	Liberty (Memphis)	C-USA 1 vs. SEC 8	North Texas	Tennessee
12/31/2013	Sun (El Paso)	ACC 4 vs. Pac-12 4	Miami	UCLA
12/30/2013	Alamo (San Antonio)	Big 12 3 vs. Pac-12 2	Texas	Arizona State
12/30/2013	Armed Forces (Ft. Worth)	MWC 3 vs. C-USA 3/Navy	San Diego State	Navy
12/30/2013	Holiday (San Diego)	Pac-12 3 vs. Big 12 5	USC	Texas Tech
12/30/2013	Music City (Nashville)	ACC 6 vs. SEC 7	Boston College	Georgia
12/28/2013	Belk (Charlotte)	AAC 3 vs. ACC 5	Houston	Georgia Tech
12/28/2013	Buffalo Wild Wings (PHX)	Big 12 4 vs. Big Ten 5	Oklahoma	Nebraska
12/28/2013	Pinstripe (New York)	Big 12 7 vs. AAC 4	West Virginia	Cincinnati
12/28/2013	Russell Athletic (Orlando)	AAC 2 vs. ACC 3	Louisville	Duke
12/27/2013	Kraft (San Francisco)	Pac-12 6 vs. BYU/ACC 9	Washington	BYU**
12/27/2013	Military (Annapolis)	ACC 8 vs. C-USA 5	Utah*	East Carolina
12/27/2013	Texas (Houston)	Big 12 6 vs. Big Ten 6	Kansas State	Michigan
12/26/2013	Little Caesars (Detroit)	MAC 1 vs. Big Ten 8	Northern Illinois	Middle Tennessee*
12/26/2013	Poinsettia (San Diego)	MWC 2 vs. Army	Utah State	Texas State*
12/24/2013	Hawaii	MWC 5 vs. C-USA 2	San Jose State	Rice
12/23/2013	Beef O'Brady's (St. Pete.)	AAC 6 vs. C-USA 4	Arkansas State*	Marshall
12/21/2013	Idaho Potato (Boise)	MAC 3 vs. MWC 6	Buffalo	Colorado State
12/21/2013	Las Vegas	MWC 1 vs. Pac-12 5	Boise State	Arizona
12/21/2013	New Mexico (Albuquerque)	MWC 4 vs. Pac-12 7	UNLV	Oregon State
12/21/2013	New Orleans	Sun Belt 1 vs. C-USA 6	UL Lafayette	Tulane

*: Filling in for another conference.

**: Already accepted bid.

Bold: In a better place than last week.

Italic: In a worse place than last week.

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BCS bowls

The first major shakeup of the season turns out nicely for the ACC. Not only is Florida State now in line for the national title game, the Orange gets two of the first three picks, since it gets to replace FSU and goes first in the at-large order. As the Orange is essentially an ACC bowl moving forward in the Playoff system, Clemson's the natural choice at 11-1 or 10-2, and a one-loss Oregon is the other.

Whether the Orange picks those first or third likely wouldn't matter, since the Sugar will prefer to keep its SEC ties. I've had Texas A&M going to the Sugar for a while now, since it'll likely be Johnny Manziel's last game (and the Sugar will need something to make up for the lack of national interest in UCF football), but now I think the Aggies lose at least to LSU and slip out of the BCS top 14, meaning they'd be ineligible.

Either Auburn or Missouri would make for a decent choice, but Mizzou fans will have just traveled to the SEC Championship Game to see their team lose to Alabama in this scenario. Auburn fans still have their whole postseason travel budgets to spend.

And with that, the BCS bowls would be set, assuming Fresno State makes it in by ranking either in the top 12 or in the top 14 and ahead of an AQ champion. Since the Big 12, Big Ten and Pac-12 champions have their spots locked up, and the American champion (likely UCF) is guaranteed an at-large spot, that's that.

The rest of the Oregon impact

Since Oregon's loss likely opens up room for another ACC team (and Oregon itself is unlikely to fall out of the BCS), the Big Ten and Big 12 see their bowl pictures worsen.

Last week, I had either Wisconsin or Michigan State in the Orange, but now the whole Big Ten gets bumped down a spot or so. The Big 12 also has very little chance of getting a team in besides its conference champion.

That could also hurt Notre Dame, which looks like it's counting on one of the two Heart of Dallas spots not being filled by that game's conference ties in order to land in a game with decent exposure against a respectable opponent. If both the Big Ten and the Big 12 are able to fill that game, the Irish are really going to go slumming, since they don't have a tie to any bowl this year.

Also, the whole ACC moving up means Clemson's out of the Chick-fil-A, meaning South Carolina can go there now.