Eight months of talking and speculating about which teams will be in the College Football Playoff all amount to a lot of wasted energy less than one month into the actual season.
Oregon started at No. 2 and are struggling. Oklahoma and Texas A&M opened in the top 10 and have been unable to find their footing on offense before the difficult part of their SEC season.
There's been some positives, too. Louisville has been impressive in a loss to Mississippi and a defeat of SMU. The latter result in Week 3 has the Cardinals moving into the projected playoff field in this week's bowl projections. Joining them in moving up are the Rebels, who had their own big victory last Saturday against LSU and former coach Lane Kiffin.
Expect to see more unpredictability
with still 11 weeks to play. It may come as soon as this weekend with five games matching teams from the US LBM Coaches Poll, ensuring some contenders will hit a bump in the road. The good thing for those teams taking on damage will have others joining them broken down on the shoulder.
College football bowl projections after Week 3
Note: Pac-12 spots are filled by teams currently in the conference and legacy teams that have left.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Reshuffling college football playoff, bowl predictions after wild Week 3
