Mississippi State not only knocked Ole Miss out of the bowls with a 55-20 win in the Egg Bowl, the Bulldogs made themselves a bowl team as well.

Thanks to its high APR, the Bulldogs will be in the bowls even with a 5-7 record. There will be no more than 78 bowl-eligible teams for 80 bowl spots, meaning that Mississippi State, with the second-highest Academic Progress Rate score among the 5-7 teams, is in.

We have the Bulldogs in the Armed Forces Bowl in an interesting matchup with Navy.

On the other end of the bowl selections, we have Alabama playing Ohio State in the Peach Bowl as part of the College Football Playoff. The Tide would be the top seed. We like Clemson and Washington in the other semifinal.

Who do you think Alabama should get?

The Sugar Bowl goes to Auburn, which at 8-4 should finish as the next highest-ranked SEC team. LSU is our Citrus Bowl team as we think they’ll finish ranked ahead of Florida. But the Gators can help their cause with a good performance against Alabama this week.

Here are our projections:

2016 SEC bowl projections after Week 13 (12 invites)

  • College Football Playoff semifinal (Peach Bowl): Alabama vs. Ohio State
  • New Year’s Six (Sugar Bowl): Auburn vs. Oklahoma
  • Citrus Bowl: LSU vs. North Carolina
  • Music City Bowl: Arkansas vs. Minnesota
  • Outback Bowl: Florida vs. Nebraska
  • TaxSlayer Bowl: Tennessee vs. Miami
  • Liberty Bowl: Kentucky vs. TCU
  • Texas Bowl: Texas A&M vs. Kansas State
  • Belk Bowl: South Carolina vs. Virginia Tech
  • Birmingham Bowl: Georgia vs. Houston
  • Independence Bowl: Vanderbilt vs. Boston College
  • Armed Forces Bowl: Mississippi State vs. Navy

On the outside looking in: Ole Miss, Missouri