Bowl predictions: Alabama falls out of College Football Playoff spot as Michigan falls out of field

I always like to say that you don't really find out how good a team is until they start playing conference games on the road. For example, let's take a look at what happened in week 6:

In each case, it was the team's first conference game with a road loss — except for Tennessee, which won at Oklahoma earlier in the season, and USC, which is now 0-2 in Big Ten roadies.

No. 8 Miami nearly added itself to that list, but the Hurricanes came back from a 25-point, second-half deficit to beat Cal 39-38.

Automatic eligibility for the College Football Playoff remains the same this week from last week's bowl projections. Despite some craziness on Saturday, those four teams came out unscathed, while Texas had the good sense not to play at all.

The big berths have changed a bit though. After the loss at Vanderbilt, Alabama dropped to sixth and Oregon moved up to No. 5 in its place. Georgia still serves as a floor for the Crimson Tide as the Bulldogs sit at No. 7 in the field.

Michigan, which was a projected 10-seed last week, is out of the field. Clemson moves up to the Wolverines' spot at No. 10, while Texas A&M rejoins the field as the 11-seed. The Aggies were in my preseason projections but fell after a season-opening loss to Notre Dame.

For those of you counting at home, that's four SEC teams, three from the Big Ten, two each from the Big 12 and ACC, and 12-seed Boise State off the list as the Mountain West's Group of Five representatives. There are also two regular-season rematches, non-conference games in the opening round and one game between two SEC teams that is not a regular-season rematch.

Quarter finals

First round

Several teams are still in contention for CFP bids If you were to create a bubble this early, it would be as big as the playoffs.

SEC teams will have four alone, though Tennessee hurt itself this week with a loss at Arkansas. I've been saying the Volunteers have to beat Alabama or Georgia to have a strong chance to get in — and now, that's their only chance. Next week's game between Ole Miss and LSU is likely going to knock the loser out of contention. Missouri has only one game left against Alabama that could get the CFP selection committee's attention.

In the Big Ten, Ohio State plays at Oregon in what could be a preview of the conference championship game. Penn State is at USC, giving the Trojans a chance to bounce back from their loss at Minnesota and revive their CFP hopes. If the Nittany Lions lose, they may have to beat the Buckeyes on Nov. 2 to keep their hopes of an at-large berth alive.

Iowa already has two losses after falling to Ohio State on Saturday. However, the Hokies could still play their way into the Big Ten Championship Game as their one loss came at Iowa State. The conference title is likely Iowa's only path to a CFP bid.

And what about Notre Dame? The Irish could be hurt by their relatively soft schedule and, of course, the loss to Northern Illinois. Even if they finish 11-1, it's possible that none of those wins will top a team in the final rankings. If Texas A&M can stay strong, Notre Dame's only win against a team listed in the final CFP rankings at the end of the season could be. I suspect the committee will drop 11-1 Notre Dame, but 10-2 isn't certain.

Just to be clear, the CFP doesn't care at all about game-time rankings — not even their own. The AP Top 25 and Coach selections are clearly not benchmarks; They consider opponents ranked in their most recent rankings as teams. However, schedule evaluation goes deeper than that.

There's a good chance we'll have a number of teams with nine or 10 wins at the end of the year and not a significant number of them. If they need one or two to fill the field, these types of teams will make the committee's job difficult.

For the first time this season, only one team is expected to finish 5-7 in bowl projections. That team is Wisconsin, which badgered Purdue 52-6 in a game that wasn't as close as the score indicated.

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