Kudos to Fox Sports’ Stewart Mandel for going against the grain in this season’s 2015 bowl projections.

In fact, he’s the only national analyst who’s picking both South Carolina and Florida to miss out on the postseason altogether thanks to Kentucky, who Mandel picks as a bowl team.

Cycling through the rest of Mandel’s predictions, he’s going all-in on Texas A&M winning the SEC title and reaching the Playoff along with conference champs Ohio State and TCU. The fourth at-large selection is where it gets tricky:

The candidates would be an 11-1 Michigan State team that did not win its division; 11-2 ACC champ Virginia Tech sporting just two likely Top 25 wins; or a 10-2 Auburn team that did not win its division but would have beaten at least four teams I expect to finish in the Top 25 — including a 10-1 Alabama team in its last game before the selection.

We think the only way Auburn makes the Playoff as an at-large non-division champion would be to finish 11-1 with that lone loss coming to the eventual champ, whoever that may be.

In all, Mandel likes 11 SEC teams to go bowling this season. Most national projections have 12 with Kentucky and Vanderbilt being the outliers.

Stewart Mandel’s (Fox Sports) SEC bowl projections

  • Playoff Semifinal (Cotton) — TCU vs. Texas A&M
  • Playoff Semifinal (Orange) — Ohio State vs. Auburn
  • Sugar — Baylor vs. Alabama
  • Citrus — Penn State vs. Tennessee
  • Outback — Minnesota vs. Georgia
  • TaxSlayer — Louisville vs. LSU
  • Liberty — Texas vs. Mizzou
  • Belk — Georgia Tech vs. Arkansas
  • Texas — Texas Tech vs. Ole Miss
  • Music City — Nebraska vs. Kentucky
  • Independence — North Carolina vs. Mississippi State