Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
It's finally October, which means we have enough information from this year's nearly-half-over college football season to start projecting what the 2016-17 bowl lineup will look like.The bowl selection process has changed in the past three years, with the advent of the College Football Playoff and New Year's Six bowls. Conferences now have a greater say in the bowl pecking order than they did before.The top four teams go to the Playoff, regardless of conference, and the remaining New Year's Six bowls are filled out with conference tie-ins and at-large bids. All bowls have conference tie-ins, but those are broken when conferences can't fill all of their slots. Here's a good look at the tie-in and selection process. Teams have to be at least 6-6 to make a bowl, but if there aren't enough 6-6 teams to fill all of the slots, 5-7 teams are selected based on their Academic Progress Rate. As of now, three projected 5-7 teams (Northwestern, Boston College and Missouri) made the cut.Our projected Playoff (Alabama vs. Washington and Ohio State vs. Clemson) and national championship (Alabama vs. Ohio State) should produce an incredible set of games, and there are a number of other intriguing games: Michigan vs. Stanford (the Harbaugh Bowl), Tennessee vs. Oklahoma, Ole Miss vs. Houston, Miami vs. Baylor and Louisville vs. Wisconsin.
