We are approaching the finish line here with the penultimate installment of my preseason series. I was hoping to wrap everything up before the Week 0 kickoff, but Day Job and life got a bit away from me this week.

Today I put the pieces together to project the 12-team playoff field and how it would play out. I am not that concerned about the accuracy of my picks. Instead, I wanted to go through an exercise using one feasible full season scenario and see where things would land.

There are a few really interesting conclusions that I have come to. First, while the four-bye structure does make sense, it creates some other issues that I don't honestly think that the committee is smart enough to fully realize. This is going to create some potentially interesting consequences that I explore below.

The way to potentially fix the issue is to allow or encourage the committee to move the at-large teams around a bit on the seed list, specifically to balance things out and to reduce the potential for rematches in the earlier rounds. I think that there is a good chance that they will do this, as there is evidence in the past that they have done something similar in the NY6 era This is why MSU faced Baylor in the Cotton Bowl is 2014 instead of playing Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl. The committee switched Mississippi State and Michigan State in the final poll when neither team played a game in order to create a better NY6 matchups. They did something similar last year to avoid putting current Big Ten opponents Ohio State and Oregon in a bowl together.

These examples give me hope.

Anyway, as usual enjoy!

In our final position preview, we break down the special teams unit. Catch the position group on the homepage here: