Orange Bowl front runners

Now that FSU-ND is in the past, it makes it a little clearer to try to predict the Orange Bowl, specifically the non-ACC slot.  The biggest hurdle prior to that game was not knowing which team was tracking towards the CFP.

Now, we're still a little complicated based on the SEC West having 4 of the top 5 teams, so there will be a lot of shuffling in the polls before the season is done.

We posted a refresher on the new format of the Orange Bowl a few months ago.

We'll start with the top 25, and take out any team not in the SEC, B1G, or Notre Dame.

1 Mississippi State
2 Florida State
3 Ole Miss
4 Alabama
5 Auburn
6 Oregon
7 Notre Dame
8 Michigan State
9 Georgia
10 TCU
11 Kansas State
12 Baylor
13 Ohio State
14 Arizona State
15 Arizona
16 Nebraska
17 Oklahoma
18 East Carolina
19 Utah
20 USC
21 Clemson
22 West Virginia
23 Marshall
24 LSU
25 UCLA

Now, it's safe to eliminate the top team from that list, as they'll likely be in the CFP.  I'll also take out the highest ranked B1G team, who's on track to be the champ, and isn't eligible for the Orange Bowl spot.

1 Mississippi State
3 Ole Miss
4 Alabama
5 Auburn
7 Notre Dame
8 Michigan State
9 Georgia
13 Ohio State
16 Nebraska
24 LSU

Eh....the heck with it.  It's still too early to make any prediction.  All we really know is that Notre Dame still has a good chance of making it into the Orange Bowl.

Mississippi State or Ole Miss is guaranteed to end the season with at least one loss, and either Alabama or Auburn will end with two.  So there's also a good shot of someone in the Iron Bowl to be in the Orange Bowl.

I would say the top two contenders will be Notre Dame and the SEC West runner up.