Now that the dream of a playoff has turned into a reality (following the 2014 season), this realistic-but-still-hypothetical-for-two-years feature actually has some outside guidelines to follow: four teams, two semifinal spots and then a championship game. We currently have no clue how teams will be determined, how polls will be released, or who will put them together. So with that in mind, we’re going with the BCS rankings (courtesy of BCSGuru for teams outside of top 25), for lack of an on-hand committee to spit out a detailed list. We’ll also fill in the major bowl games also slated to be part of the playoff structure. Additionally, for our own enjoyment, you’ll find a 16-team hypothetical tournament below, too. Just because it’s too much fun not to think about.

If the Four-Team Playoff Started This Year…

Fiesta Bowl (semifinal): #1 Notre Dame vs. #4 Oregon

Sugar Bowl (semifinal): #2 Alabama vs. #3 Florida

National Championship: #4 Oregon over #2 Alabama

Orange Bowl: Florida State vs. LSU

Cotton Bowl: Kansas State vs. Texas A&M

Rose Bowl: Stanford vs. Wisconsin

Chick-fil-a Bowl: Georgia vs. Northern Illinois

While the real-life national title game should be a fun matchup of two elite defenses, it’s great to see we’d be able to realize everyone’s dream matchup here (Oregon vs. Alabama). As has been the case in every one of these projections, the SEC would have a monopoly on the at-large bids.

If There Was a 16 Team Playoff…

First Round (winners in italics)

#1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (at-large) vs. #37 Arkansas State Red Wolves (Sun Belt champ)

#2 Alabama Crimson Tide (SEC champ) vs. #33 Tulsa Golden Hurricane (C-USA champ)

#3 Florida Gators (at-large) vs. #26 Wisconsin Badgers (B1G champ)

#4 Oregon Ducks (at-large) vs. #22 Utah State Aggies (WAC champ)

#5 Kansas State Wildcats (Big 12 champ) vs. #21 Louisville Cardinals (Big East champ)

#6 Stanford Cardinal (Pac-12 champ) vs. #19 Boise State Broncos (MWC champ)

#7 Georgia Bulldogs (at-large) vs. #15 Northern Illinois Huskies (MAC champ)

#8 LSU Tigers (at-large) vs. #12 Florida State Seminoles (ACC champ)

Quarterfinals

#1 Notre Dame vs. #8 LSU

#2 Alabama vs. #7 Georgia

#3 Florida vs. #6 Stanford

#4 Oregon vs. #5 Kansas State

Semifinals

#1 Notre Dame vs. #6 Stanford

#2 Alabama vs. #4 Oregon

National Championship

#4 Oregon over #6 Stanford

Once again, with how close each of the top eight teams are to each other, a 16-team event ends up handing us a pretty compelling semifinal, despite the chalk in round one. Again, we get another Alabama/Oregon matchup — albeit in one of the semis — and a Stanford/Notre Dame rematch as well. Just like last week’s projections, we end up with the all-Pac-12 championship game that could still pull in monster ratings country-wide. Despite the loss a few weeks back, I’ll maintain that the Ducks still beat the Cardinal nine out of every 10 games played, and would pull out a hard-fought win here

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