Where does OU land in newest bowl projections from ESPN?

The Oklahoma Sooners earned an important win last week over the Missouri Tigers, and they’ve set themselves up well as far as the College Football Playoff is concerned.

With one week left in the regular season and one game left on the schedule on Saturday at home against the LSU Tigers, OU should just need a win in Norman this week to put themselves in the CFP.

ESPN college football writers Mark Schlabach and Kyle Bonagura believe that OU will be in the playoff, as they both had the Sooners grabbing the No. 8 seed in their latest bowl projections.

Both Schlabach and Bonagura think that Oklahoma will host Notre Dame in the first round, as the eighth seed is important, because it determines home-field advantage against the ninth seed. Schlabach thinks the Fighting Irish will win on the road in that hypothetical matchup, but Bonagura is picking the Sooners to win at home, before losing to No. 1 Ohio State in the Rose Bowl.

Oklahoma is very likely in with a win this week, but it doesn’t hurt to root for a few things to go OU’s way (as far as simply getting in the bracket) and make it less stressful on December 7th’s Selection Sunday. First things first, the Sooners have to beat LSU on Saturday, or they’ll miss the playoff.

With one team projected to get in from the likes of the Group of Five conferences (American, CUSA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sun Belt), and one team, the conference champion, projected to get in from the ACC, there are 10 spots up for grabs between the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Notre Dame.

The only ACC team with much of a chance to make it as an at-large is Miami, but they may be ranked too far low right now to make it in. They have a very slim chance of making the ACC title game, and there very likely aren’t enough opportunities left for the Hurricanes to impress the committee enough to jump in, unless absolute anarchy ensues. Two-loss Vanderbilt, out of the SEC, will likely suffer the same fate as the 'Canes, as the Commodores can't get to the SEC title game and look to be too far behind to get into the top 10 of the rankings.

Oklahoma would love to see just one Big 12 team get in, which would be the case if Texas Tech wins the league. However, if another team, say BYU, Utah or Arizona State, were to win the conference, there would likely be two teams in from the Big 12, as Texas Tech would still be likely in as an at-large.

The same goes for the Big Ten, where the Sooners would love to see just three teams - Ohio State, Indiana, and Oregon - make the CFP. However, if Michigan gets into the league title game and pulls an upset, the Big Ten would get four bids instead of three.

In the SEC, the Sooners would still possibly be safe in the above nightmare scenario involving the Big 12 and Big Ten, as long as anybody (Texas A&M, Georgia or Ole Miss) besides Alabama wins the SEC title game, as the Crimson Tide would automatically be in if that happens, and would jump ahead of the Sooners, despite OU’s head-to-head win.

Clearly, the Sooners would need a lot of things to fall against them if they were to miss the CFP even after beating LSU. In many of the doomsday scenarios, there would be one spot remaining between the two-loss Sooners and the two-loss Fighting Irish. If the committee puts OU ahead of Notre Dame in the next couple of rankings, we’d have a pretty good idea of how they feel the two teams stack up.

According to ESPN’s playoff prediction model, Oklahoma currently has a 78% chance to make the playoff, which is good for eighth-best in the country. A win over LSU this week moves those chances to 99%, with an 80% chance to host a first-round matchup.

The Sooners are in really good shape, but they have to take care of business against a talented, rugged LSU squad that is ready to play spoiler on Owen Field on Saturday afternoon. If they do so, it would take unbelievable chaos to keep OU out of the 12-team College Football Playoff in 2025.

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This article originally appeared on Sooners Wire: Where is Oklahoma at in ESPN's latest bowl projections?