Updated College Football Playoff and bowl projections, with Notre Dame replacing Oregon

One thing people like to tell each other after teams have played one game each is that teams have played one game each. This is not much evidence, and it's not much reason to reject the thoughts we've had for eight months. Those thoughts were very important, seeing as we gathered them when no games were happening.

It might seem like overreaction to bump Notre Dame from the New Year's Six games to the Playoff after the Irish merely defeated the Texas Longhorns. If that's all it takes to get in, more than four teams will probably make the Playoff this year.

But we can learn a lot from one week, and Saturday, ND bombed a Texas defense that was top-10 in stats advanced and non a year ago, and if that can continue against a schedule full of famous teams, I think the Irish can make it in with one loss.

(And this isn't that much of a bandwagoning; ND was the first team out of the Playoff in the previous projections.)

The other top three remain for now. Conference championship bumps would seem to elevate these others over ND in the eyes of the committee, all other things being similar.

I think Alabama looked better than Ohio State in Week 1, but OSU's wonderfully breezy schedule makes any other prediction for the final No. 1 slot silly. Some will bring up Florida State slipping in the Playoff rankings despite an undefeated record last year, but Florida State didn't completely dunk on teams like the Buckeyes seem capable of doing. Obliterating a weak schedule should be at least as impressive as squeaking past an OK schedule, presuming such an obliteration happens.

Oregon slides down, and if the Ducks are down here, that probably means they got tangled in one too many shootouts and also lost to Michigan State in East Lansing on September 12. That's how I have it drawn up, which would make this the Ducks-Spartans rubber match in the Rose Bowl. That sounds pretty good, right?

The other change since last time: Texas A&M takes over for Auburn. A bit more convinced so far by the Aggies' defensive overhaul than the Tigers', and Auburn has the harder schedule the rest of the way.

Texas down! Penn State down! Maryland's leaving! Northwestern's here! Stanford down! Here comes Cal! Some other adjustments! I'll do 13 more weekly guesses until the people in charge tell me the right answers!