There have been three weeks of games since the first College Football Playoff rankings of the season, and at least one Top Six team has lost in each of those three weeks.

How's that for carnage?

That streak is guaranteed to continue in Week 13, too, with No. 3 Michigan playing at No. 2 Ohio State. And there's a good chance it will extend into Championship Week, with current No. 1 Georgia on a collision course with current No. 5 LSU in the SEC title game.

Will any other Top Six teams go down over these final two weeks, though, or could we be headed for a relatively cut-and-dry Top Four featuring Georgia, TCU, USC and the Big Ten champion?

Outside the CFP Top Four, how far does Tennessee drop in the bowl picture for its hideous loss to South Carolina? Or North Carolina for its bad loss to Georgia Tech? And does anyone want to win the AAC to secure a spot in the Cotton Bowl?

Please note that these are bowl projections and not some sort of "if the season ended today" exercise. Though the end of the season is rapidly approaching, each team's projected win total is still more important than its current record or AP ranking.

The bowl games have been broken into tiers and are presented in ascending order of magnitude.

For the first four tiers of bowls, we'll discuss one team projected for a better bowl than it was one week ago as well as a team that checks in a bit lower in the aftermath of Week 12 results. After touching on the updated CFP projections, we'll wrap things up with a conference-by-conference breakdown of which teams are projected to go to which bowls.

Bowl Math and APR Candidates

With 41 bowls this year, there are 82 spots in college football's postseason. And with one week remaining in the regular season, 74 teams (excluding James Madison, which is not eligible for a bowl in its first season at the FBS level) have already won at least six games.

That leaves eight spots to be filled, one of which will be a done deal by the end of the night on Tuesday with 5-6 Ball State taking on 5-6 Miami-Ohio.

However, the path to 82 bowl-eligible teams isn't looking promising.

(This is good news for UConn, which got to 6-6, but which would be the team left out if we were to end up with 83 bowl-eligible teams, as the Independent Huskies are not affiliated with any bowl.)

The cumulative "six-win percentage" per the College Football Power Index is currently at 8,017 percent for a projected 80.17 bowl-eligible teams. That is down from 81.51 one week ago, and it suggests we could be headed for multiple 5-7 teams getting in based on Academic Progress Rate scores.

In last week's projection, we included every team with at least a 50 percent chance of getting to six wins. This week, it's every team with at least a 42 percent chance, as well as Rice, which we'll get to momentarily. That means both Miami and Missouri are projected for bowls, even though each of those 5-6 teams has about a 44 percent chance of victory in its regular-season finale.

If and when it comes down to APR scores to decide the final spot(s) in the bowl season field, here is the upper tier of APR ranking of the teams with either four or five wins:

994 - Rice (5-6)
986 - Iowa State (4-7)
984 - UNLV (4-7)
983 - Missouri (5-6), Auburn (5-6), Michigan State (5-6)
982 - Miami (5-6)
980 - Army (4-6)
979 - Georgia Tech (5-6)

Even though Rice will be a considerable underdog at North Texas and figures to finish the season at 5-7, we've included the Owls in our projection, as there's a good chance they would get in either way.

As far as the next team up goes, Iowa State plays at undefeated TCU, so it probably won't get to 5-7. But UNLV hosts 2-9 Nevada, which means the 4-7 Rebels still have a decent shot at sneaking into a bowl.

Group of 5 Bowls

Bahamas (Dec. 16): Miami-Ohio (5-6) vs. UTSA (9-2)
Cure (Dec. 16): Buffalo (5-5) vs. Rice (5-6)
Frisco (Dec. 17): BYU (6-5) vs. Southern Miss (5-6)
LendingTree (Dec. 17): Troy (9-2) vs. Utah State (6-5)
New Mexico (Dec. 17): Fresno State (7-4) vs. Middle Tennessee (6-5)
Myrtle Beach (Dec. 19): Appalachian State (6-5) vs. San Diego State (7-4)
Boca Raton (Dec. 20): South Alabama (9-2) vs. UAB (5-6)
Famous Idaho Potato (Dec. 20): Toledo (7-4) vs. Wyoming (7-4)
New Orleans (Dec. 21): Coastal Carolina (9-1) vs. Western Kentucky (7-5)
Armed Forces (Dec. 22): Marshall (7-4) vs. SMU (6-5)
Independence (Dec. 23): Connecticut (6-6) vs. Memphis (6-5)
Hawai'i (Dec. 24): Air Force (8-3) vs. North Texas (6-5)
Camellia (Dec. 27): Bowling Green (6-5) vs. Louisiana-Lafayette (5-6)
Arizona (Dec. 30): Eastern Michigan (7-4) vs. San José State (6-4)

Moving Up: Utah State Aggies

Utah State opened the season with a 1-4 record. That included a blowout home loss to FCS school Weber State, as well as a not-great home loss to UNLV. At that point, the Aggies were highly unlikely to get to six wins.

Heck, even one week ago at 5-5 with games remaining against San José State and Boise State, the Aggies had less than a 50 percent chance of becoming bowl-eligible.

But for the fourth time in its past six games, Utah State eked out a one-possession victory, toppling the Spartans 35-31.

For the second straight week, RB Calvin Tyler Jr. was the hero. He had 163 all-purpose yards and two touchdowns in the Week 11 win over Hawai'i, and he rushed for 125 yards and three scores in this victory over SJSU. Not bad for a guy who had scored just twice in USU's first nine games of the season.

Sliding Down: Southern Miss Golden Eagles

While Utah State has reeled off three consecutive wins to improve from 3-5 to 6-5, Southern Miss has gone in the opposite direction, stuck on five wins since late October thanks to three straight losses.

The first game during that rough stretch was a blowout loss to Georgia State, but the past two have been heartbreakers, blowing fourth-quarter leads in back-to-back losses to Coastal Carolina and South Alabama.

The Golden Eagles should still get to six wins, as they will close out the regular season against 4-7 Louisiana-Monroe. The Warhawks have one of the worst defenses in the nation, allowing 35.7 points per game. But the Golden Eagles also should have beaten Georgia State and lost that one by 28, so we'll see if they can avoid ending the season on a four-game skid.

Group of 5 vs. Power 5 Bowls

Fenway (Dec. 17): Tulane (9-2) vs. Pittsburgh (7-4)
LA (Dec. 17): Boise State (8-3) vs. Washington State (7-4)
Gasparilla (Dec. 23): Houston (7-4) vs. Miami (5-6)
Quick Lane (Dec. 26): Ohio (8-3) vs. Maryland (6-5)
Birmingham (Dec. 27): Liberty (8-3) vs. Syracuse (6-5)
First Responder (Dec. 27): East Carolina (6-5) vs. Kansas (6-5)
Military (Dec. 28): NC State (7-4) vs. UCF (8-3)

Moving Up: Ohio Bobcats

Despite losing quarterback Kurtis Rourke to a knee injury late in the first half against Ball State, the Ohio Bobcats won for a sixth consecutive week and could be on their way to a spot in the MAC championship against Toledo.

One massive do-or-die hurdle remains, though, as Ohio (6-1 in MAC play) hosts Bowling Green (5-2 in MAC play) on Tuesday night.

Extend the winning streak to seven games and the Bobcats will head back to the conference title game for the first time since 2015, seeking their first MAC championship since 1968. If Bowling Green wins on the road, though, it would set up a rematch of this past Tuesday's ridiculous showdown in which BGSU clipped Toledo 42-35 on a last-second touchdown.

Sliding Down: UCF Knights

After going on the road and knocking off Tulane in Week 11, all UCF had to do to secure its spot as the host of the AAC championship was take care of business in should-win games against Navy and South Florida.

Instead, the Knights immediately stubbed their toe in a 17-14 loss to the Midshipmen.

Now, they will need to win at South Florida and hope that either Houston loses to Tulsa or end up ranked ahead of the loser of Friday's Tulane-Cincinnati game, or else they'll miss out on the conference championship altogether.

Either way, hosting that game is no longer possible, so UCF is no longer the favorite to secure the Group of Five's spot in the Cotton Bowl.

Power 5 Bowls with Potential to Be Great

Guaranteed Rate (Dec. 27): Texas Tech (6-5) vs. Wisconsin (6-5)
Holiday (Dec. 28): Louisville (7-4) vs. UCLA (8-3)
Liberty (Dec. 28): Missouri (5-6) vs. Oklahoma (6-5)
Texas (Dec. 28): Baylor (6-5) vs. Kentucky (6-5)
Pinstripe (Dec. 29): Minnesota (7-4) vs. Notre Dame (8-3)
Duke's Mayo (Dec. 30): Duke (7-4) vs. Illinois (7-4)
Sun (Dec. 30): Oregon State (8-3) vs. Wake Forest (7-4)
Music City (Dec. 31): Arkansas (6-5) vs. Purdue (7-4)

Moving Up: Texas Tech Red Raiders

It was possible that the season finale between Oklahoma and Texas Tech would be a 5-6 vs. 5-6 showdown. However, the Sooners scored 28 first-quarter points in Bedlam to secure their spot in bowl season, while the Red Raiders somehow won at Iowa State to get a sixth win of their own.

I say "somehow" not because Texas Tech was some huge underdog in Ames, but rather because a) the Red Raiders were outgained by nearly 200 yards, b) they didn't force a single turnover and c) they had gone more than two decades since last winning a game in which they scored 14 or fewer points.

But in his second game back as the starting quarterback after missing most of the season with an injury, Tyler Shough did just enough to get the W and just enough to get Joey McGuire to a bowl game in his first season as a head coach.

Sliding Down: UCLA Bruins

The USC-UCLA game was all sorts of fun, featuring a combined 93 points and 1,162 yards of total offense. UCLA QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson accounted for six total touchdowns, but also four turnovers (three interceptions and a fumble) as the Trojans kept their College Football Playoff hopes alive by a score of 48-45.

It was one of those great games in which neither team felt like a loser. But UCLA did lose for a second consecutive week and is now one of six Pac-12 teams with at least eight wins.

And, well, not all of them can play in marquee bowls.

UCLA was supposed to face NC State in the Holiday Bowl last year, but that game was canceled because of COVID-19 issues within the Bruins program. Perhaps they'll get another chance to face an ACC school in San Diego. (It might even be NC State again.)

Top Non-New Year's 6 Bowls

Las Vegas (Dec. 17): South Carolina (7-4) vs. Utah (8-3)
Alamo (Dec. 29): Texas (7-4) vs. Washington (9-2)
Cheez-It (Dec. 29): Florida State (8-3) vs. Oklahoma State (7-4)
Gator (Dec. 30): Mississippi State (7-4) vs. North Carolina (9-2)
Citrus (Jan. 2): Ole Miss (8-3) vs. Penn State (9-2)
ReliaQuest (Jan. 2): Florida (6-5) vs. Iowa (7-4)

Moving Up: Iowa Hawkeyes

It took a long time for any sort of hierarchy to shake out in the Big Ten West, but the Hawkeyes have won four in a row over Northwestern, Purdue, Wisconsin and Minnesota. They are now a home win over Nebraska away from securing their spot in the conference championship against the Michigan-Ohio State victor. (There are still scenarios for Purdue and Illinois to win the division, too, but Iowa is in with a win.)

Two weeks ago, Iowa beat Wisconsin 24-10 despite being held to 146 yards of total offense. It was the lowest yardage total in a victory since MTSU gained just 144 yards in an October 2018 victory over Charlotte.

This week, the Hawkeyes once again defied the odds, beating Minnesota 13-10 on an afternoon when Golden Gophers running back Mo Ibrahim racked up 263 rushing yards. He almost outgained Iowa (280 total yards) by himself, but Minnesota had an 88-yard drive end in a fumble and a 73-yard drive end with a missed field goal, leaving the door open for the Hawkeyes to eke out a win.

Just like that, Iowa and its terrible offense have emerged as the fourth-best team in the Big Ten. And if the Hawkeyes do finish the fight and get to the Big Ten championship, a spot in either the Citrus or ReliaQuest Bowl is a near certainty. (With the Rose Bowl still a possibility with if they can pull off the massive upset.)

Sliding Down: North Carolina Tar Heels

The Tar Heels sure did pick an unfortunate time to forget how to move the ball for the first time all season.

After averaging 40.1 points through their first 10 games and jumping out to an early 17-0 lead over Georgia Tech, Drake Maye and Co. completely collapsed.

On three consecutive drives, the Tar Heels lost yards before punting back to the Yellow Jackets. After that, it was an interception followed by another three-and-out as they fell behind GT by a 21-17 score. The would-be game-winning drive stalled out in the red zone, and North Carolina went from an unlikely CFP candidate to a team that will need to beat Clemson in the ACC championship to make a New Year's Six bowl.

(If the offense bounces back, though, the Tar Heels could pull it off. Their defense has been much better over the past month than it was early in the year.)

Non-CFP New Year's 6 Bowls

Orange (Dec. 30): Clemson (10-1) vs. Alabama (9-2)
Sugar (Dec. 31): LSU (9-2) vs. Kansas State (8-3)
Cotton (Jan. 2): Cincinnati (9-2) vs. Tennessee (9-2)
Rose (Jan. 2): Michigan (11-0) vs. Oregon (9-2)

Making Sense of the Week 12 Chaos

Even though North Carolina played its way out of the Cotton Bowl conversation with the loss to Georgia Tech this week, the race for that wild-card spot has heated up considerably.

Right now, CFP No. 10 Tennessee appears to be in the driver's seat. But No. 11 Penn State is both nipping at the Volunteers' heels for the Cotton Bowl and is still in the running for the Rose Bowl, should both Ohio State and Michigan end up in the College Football Playoff.

If both of those Big Ten teams get in because of Kansas State upsetting TCU in the Big 12 championship, it would be KSU in the Sugar Bowl and almost certainly 12-1 TCU in the Cotton Bowl, with Tennessee as the unlucky one falling out of the NY6 picture.

No. 15 Notre Dame is also still in the conversation with a major opportunity at No. 6 USC on tap.

Would winning that game be enough to vault the three-loss Fighting Irish all the way ahead of Tennessee? Probably not, though it could depend upon how convincing of a beatdown it delivers to USC and whether Tennessee bounces back from that ugly loss to South Carolina and actually looks good against Vanderbilt.

The other half of the Cotton Bowl matchup is also up in the air.

The winner of this Friday's Tulane at Cincinnati game will be the home team for the AAC championship. But whether it's an immediate rematch of those two teams or a showdown with UCF remains to be seen.*

*Based on AAC tiebreaker rules from two seasons ago, I believe if Tulane beats Cincinnati, if USF beats UCF and if Houston beats Tulsa, it would theoretically be possible for Houston to sneak into the AAC championship game, though only if the Cougars end up ranked ahead of Cincinnati in the composite average of the Anderson & Hester, Billingsley, Colley and Wolfe computer rankings, whatever the heck those are. ESPN's FPI gives Houston a 0.0 percent chance of winning the conference, though, so it might already be mathematically eliminated.

Could 9-1 Coastal Carolina or 9-2 UTSA still sneak into the mix, though? The AAC champion has earned the Group of Five spot in the New Year's Six in each of the past five years, but it's not a lock.

College Football Playoff

Peach (Dec. 31): No. 1 Georgia (11-0) vs. No. 4 USC (10-1)
Fiesta (Dec. 31): No. 2 Ohio State (11-0) vs. No. 3 TCU (11-0)

National Championship (Jan. 9): No. 1 Georgia vs. No. 2 Ohio State

Following Tennessee's stunning blowout loss to South Carolina, the field of viable candidates for the College Football Playoff shrunk a little bit more this week.

We're now down to just eight teams: The four teams listed above, LSU, Michigan, Clemson and, I suppose, Alabama as the "Break in Case of Emergency" team if there's total carnage down the stretch.

For LSU to get in, it needs to beat Texas A&M on Saturday and upset Georgia in the SEC Championship. Even if TCU and USC also win out, it's likely the 11-2 Tigers would finish ahead of the 12-1 Trojans for the No. 4 seed. (We can argue about its likelihood if we get to that point, but it would be shocking if a two-loss SEC champion gets left out in favor of a one-loss Pac-12 champion that had zero quality wins until this past weekend.)

For Michigan to get in, the "simplest" path would be winning at Ohio State this weekend and then completing the 13-0 campaign in the B1G championship, most likely against Iowa.

But even the Michigan/Ohio State loser is still going to have a playoff pulse. If Georgia wins out (thus eliminating LSU) and if either TCU or USC suffers a loss (either this weekend or in Championship Week), the Big Ten East runner-up would have a strong case for the No. 4 seed.

Clemson's path back to the playoff is considerably more complicated but nowhere near impossible.

The Tigers must win the ACC and need Georgia to beat LSU, both of which are the most likely outcome. But they're also going to either need a loss by both TCU and USC or a loss by one of those teams and a blowout so convincing in the Michigan-Ohio State game that the loser plummets to behind Clemson in the subsequent rankings. Feasible, but not probable.

Though we're projecting USC for the No. 4 seed, a two-bid Big Ten does feel like the most likely outcome here, as USC is probably going to lose another game—either this week against Notre Dame or next week in the Pac-12 championship (likely against Oregon). For now, though, we're rolling with four of the five projected Power Five champions.

Bowl Games by Conference

Here is the breakdown of bowl projections listed alphabetically by conference. New Year's Six games have been italicized and underlined to help those of you who scrolled to the bottom to find the marquee bowls.

American Athletic (seven teams): Cincinnati (Cotton), East Carolina (First Responder), Houston (Gasparilla), Memphis (Independence), SMU (Armed Forces), Tulane (Fenway), UCF (Military)

Atlantic Coast (10 teams): Clemson (Orange), Duke (Duke's Mayo), Florida State (Cheez-It), Louisville (Holiday), Miami (Gasparilla), North Carolina (Gator), NC State (Military), Pittsburgh (Fenway), Syracuse (Birmingham), Wake Forest (Sun)

Big 12 (eight teams): Baylor (Texas), Kansas (First Responder), Kansas State (Sugar), Oklahoma (Liberty), Oklahoma State (Cheez-It), TCU (Fiesta), Texas (Alamo), Texas Tech (Guaranteed Rate)

Big Ten (nine teams): Illinois (Duke's Mayo), Iowa (ReliaQuest), Maryland (Quick Lane), Michigan (Rose), Minnesota (Pinstripe), Ohio State (Fiesta), Penn State (Citrus), Purdue (Music City), Wisconsin (Guaranteed Rate)

Conference USA (six teams): Middle Tennessee (New Mexico), North Texas (Hawai'i), Rice (Cure), UAB (Boca Raton), UTSA (Bahamas), Western Kentucky (New Orleans)

Independents (four teams): BYU (Frisco), Connecticut (Independence), Liberty (Birmingham), Notre Dame (Pinstripe)

Mid-American (six teams): Bowling Green (Camellia), Buffalo (Cure), Eastern Michigan (Arizona), Miami-Ohio (Bahamas), Ohio (Quick Lane), Toledo (Famous Idaho Potato)

Mountain West (seven teams): Air Force (Hawai'i), Boise State (LA), Fresno State (New Mexico), San Diego State (Myrtle Beach), San José State (Arizona), Utah State (LendingTree), Wyoming (Famous Idaho Potato)

Pac-12 (seven teams): Oregon (Rose), Oregon State (Sun), UCLA (Holiday), USC (Peach), Utah (Las Vegas), Washington (Alamo), Washington State (LA)

Southeastern (11 teams): Alabama (Orange), Arkansas (Music City), Florida (ReliaQuest), Georgia (Peach), Kentucky (Texas), LSU (Sugar), Mississippi State (Gator), Missouri (Liberty), Ole Miss (Citrus), South Carolina (Las Vegas), Tennessee (Cotton)

Sun Belt (seven teams): Appalachian State (Myrtle Beach), Coastal Carolina (New Orleans), Louisiana-Lafayette (Camellia), Marshall (Armed Forces), South Alabama (Boca Raton), Southern Miss (Frisco), Troy (LendingTree)

Kerry Miller covers college football, men's college basketball and Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter, @kerrancejames.