2024 College Football Playoff, bowl projections after Week 5 - ESPN

Alabama-Georgia in a game for the ages. Ole Miss falling to Kentucky with a last-second field goal miss. Utah suffering its first loss at the hands of Arizona.

With three top-10 teams going down to defeat, we've got the biggest shake-up yet in our College Football Playoff projections, with reverberations felt throughout the bowl matchups.

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 on Dec. 8.

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Playoff picks | Quarterfinals
Semis, title game | Bowl season

First-round games

Dec. 20-21 — ABC/ESPN or TNT Sports*
Bonagura: No. 12 James Madison at No. 5 Alabama
Schlabach: No. 12 UNLV at No. 5 Texas

Bonagura: No. 11 Clemson at No. 6 Tennessee
Schlabach: No. 11 Missouri at No. 6 Georgia

Bonagura: No. 10 Michigan at No. 7 Oregon
Schlabach: No. 10 Clemson at No. 7 Tennessee

Bonagura: No. 9 Penn State at No. 8 Georgia
Schlabach: No. 9 Penn State