Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to write a post before the bids starting coming out. The full field is now available.

I didn’t have a particularly strong opinion in the Alabama vs. Ohio State debate, and I predicted that Alabama would probably prevail. It does, unfortunately, lead to the non-zero chance that there could be a Georgia vs. Alabama national title game, which would pretty much be the most insufferable thing ever.

Some other notes from the field:

• I was surprised Washington got in the New Year’s Six over TCU, but that’s way things go sometimes. This likely wrecked a lot of projections.
• There was a lot of horse trading this afternoon. The Camellia Bowl, New Mexico Bowl, and Army’s opponent in the Armed Forces Bowl were the last to be announced, probably to work out getting a better opponent for Army than a low-tier C-USA or MAC team. These bowls are all owned by ESPN, which means that things can happen that are hard to predict.
• Oregon vs. Boise State on the first day of bowl season in the Las Vegas Bowl should be a lot of fun.
• I bet the Texas Bowl people want Texas-Texas A&M badly, but I suspect neither school wants to play that game. TAMU wound up going to the Belk Bowl instead.
• Texas Tech-South Florida is probably going to set a Birmingham Bowl scoring record.
• TCU-Stanford may be the grittiest Alamo Bowl ever.

That’s about it. Our annual preview series will start next week!