With its commanding win over Hawai’i and subsequent victory over San Diego State, not only will Washington State will be returning to a bowl after taking a year off — the Cougars are making the most of their schedule by piling up wins and continuing on a trajectory for an excellent bowl game.

As it stands, there is still a massive range of possibilities for where the Cougars could end up after the season. Pretty much every postseason option — including a College Football Playoff appearance — is still on the table. Trying to project where they’ll land is a little tricky, thanks to both the newness of this year’s CFP format and also the wonkiness of “Pac-12” bowl selection … but they’re definitely trending in the right direction.

Let’s explore some scenarios.

Technically, yes. Of course, it’s usually not great news when the answer to a question starts with the caveat, “technically.” Remember, it’s a 12-team field made up of:

Practically, it will very likely play out like this:

For the purposes of the CFP, the Pac-12 — and its automatic bid — no longer exist. Although WSU and Oregon State have a scheduling agreement with the Mountain West, they’re not in that conference, either², which means they’ll be treated as an independent by the CFP committee. Being an independent means the only path to the playoff for WSU is if they’re among those seven highest-ranked teams (as determined by the CFP committee).

Can WSU get as high No. 11, even if it wins out to get to 11-1?

ESPN’s playoff predictor gives WSU a 49% chance of winning out, and a 10% chance of being selected for the CFP. That means that the algorithm has concluded that if we do win out, we’ve got about a 20% chance of being selected.³ I don’t actually know how ESPN came up with the math to create selection probabilities (although I can make a decent educated guess⁴), but a 1-in-5 chance of a team with WSU’s schedule being ranked among the top 11 passes the smell test to me.

Beyond winning out and rooting for chaos above them, what would help WSU? If the CFP’s past behavior is predictive, “quality” wins are the biggest driver in their decisions. Because the CFP is fundamentally a made-for-TV tournament, they have seemed to make selections based on the likelihood that the team is going to be able to deliver a competitive game rather than adopting a true “resume” approach. (Looking at you, 2023 Florida State!)

WSU’s quality wins are … let’s say “lacking.” We don’t have one over a team ranked in the top 25, and our only top 25 opponent handed us a 21-point loss on the road. Our best bet is to hope that someone we’ve beaten — Texas Tech, Washington (ewww) — plays well enough over the last month to sneak into the top 25 by the end of the season.

These things are all unlikely … but not impossible!

In the probable event that WSU does not make the CFP and also doesn’t crap the bed in the final month, the Cougars will be in line for one of the Pac-12’s top bowls.

The disintegration of the Pac-12 as we knew it a little over a year ago left its bowl partners in an awkward position: Still holding contracts with the conference for a couple of more years while also not having an actual conference to fulfill the contracts. The “solution” to this problem is no less awkward: Despite playing in different conferences, the current and former members of the Pac-12 will continue to be treated as members of the “Pac-12” for the purpose of bowl selection. The same bowls you’ve always known (minus the Rose, which is now part of the CFP quarterfinals) are the same bowls up for grabs this year (and next).

These bowls have kept the same pecking order they had, and they’re using the same selection process as before, just with one (pretty enormous) tweak: The bowl-eligible teams will be ordered for selection by their overall records, rather than conference record.

As it turns out, this actually is a pretty huge advantage for Washington State and Oregon State, each of whom play much softer schedules this year than their former Pac-12 counterparts. And it means that WSU — even if it misses out on the CFP — is in prime position to land in one of the best Pac-12 bowls against a premium, non-CFP opponent from a major conference.

How might that happen? I can explain.

(Some might call it a tiny little bit of justice that makes no real difference in the grand scheme of things, but the fact that WSU could be playing in the Alamo Bowl while a team that thought it was too good for the Pac-12 is playing in Shreveport, Louisiana — or even sitting at home — does at least feel pretty good to my cold, dark, petty heart. But I digress!)

As a refresher, here are the “Pac-12’s” bowl tie-ins, in order of prestige/selection. Keep in mind that when it says #1, for example, we’re talking about the “first selection of non-CFP teams”:

The “previously agreed upon selection process” works like this:

What causes a bowl committee to select one of option over another option? At the top, it’s usually just as simple as taking the team with the smallest number next to its name. Other factors for consideration include:

With all that in mind, let’s simulate the Pac-12’s process using ESPN’s FPI win-loss projections, which takes the team’s current record and adds its projected wins and losses to game out a final record. These would be the final standings (rounded to the nearest whole result) — teams that would not be eligible for bowl games are in italics:

Using these standings, here are the bowls each team could potentially be selected for:

If WSU went no worse than 3-1 over the final four, they’d very likely be locked into either the Alamo or Holiday. Here’s how.

Let’s assume, for the purposes of simplicity (and probability), that Oregon is the only one of these 12 that heads off to the College Football Playoff — with a 12-1 record, they’d be the Big Ten champ or have lost the Big Ten Championship game. Either way, they’re in.

The pick: Oregon

That leaves WSU and Colorado as the only two options here — the Cougars as the highest remaining team in the standings, and the Buffs as the only other team within a game. WSU would have the better record (and maybe higher ranking), but Colorado would have the bigger TV draw by virtue of their head coach. That said … Colorado is actually in the Big 12 … and the other team in the Alamo Bowl will come from the Big 12’s non-former-Pac-12 schools. At the moment, that other team is roundly predicted to be Kansas State, and the Buffs and Wildcats have already played. So, while Deion Sanders’ draw might be irresistible in the end — to the point that a rematch could be on the table — I’m betting that the Alamo just keeps things simple by taking WSU rather than trying to finagle Colorado vs. a Big 12 team they didn’t already play once.

The pick: WSU

With the next closest team two games behind the Colorado, the Holiday is obligated to select the Buffs. (Related: It’s worth noting that — in this hypothetical — the Cougs also can fall no lower than the Holiday Bowl.)

The pick: Colorado

This is where it starts getting weird. Every bowl eligible team left is eligible to be picked for this game! Arizona State, USC, and Cal all sit at 7-5, while Oregon State sits one game back at 6-6. Given the Trojans’ brand and Las Vegas’ proximity to Los Angeles, we’re going to guess that the bowl organizers here would be absolutely thrilled to match USC up with literally anyone from the SEC.

The pick: USC

OK, now another new wrinkle gets introduced: Starting here, the bowls are obligated to take the highest remaining team — no more reaching down a game in the standings. If Las Vegas takes USC (or ASU or Cal), then OSU (being a game back) is not eligible to be picked here (and is now locked into the Independence Bowl). That leaves ASU or Cal. Fun fact: California is one of only two Pac-12 teams to never have played in the Sun Bowl! I bet the folks in El Paso would love the chance to get some fresh blood … but hold up … the opponent here is from the ACC. Which Cal is now a member of. Alas.

The pick: Arizona State

As the last remaining 7-5 team, the Golden Bears are off to Los Angeles.

The pick: California

As the last remaining bowl-eligible team, the Beavers are off to Shreveport. Sorry, Huskies — maybe next year you can meet the lofty goal of reaching six wins and heading off to the Pac-12’s sixth-best bowl!

The pick: Oregon State

In this exercise, the projections obviously end up very chalky. Some of that is the projected records forcing folks into certain spots, but the tie-ins from the other conferences are likely to play a pretty big role here, too. Like, if these were the standings and the Pac-12 was intact and Colorado wasn’t in the Big 12 now, I bet the Buffs would be a shoo-in for the Alamo — and then WSU would be off to the Holiday. It still could happen, but that seems to me to be a lot more unlikely than it otherwise would.

I get it. You’d rather go to Vegas than San Antonio or San Diego (again), prestige be damned. To get that possibility, you need the Cougs to be in a group of three around the top bowls. That could happen if they stumble down the stretch, but none of us want to think about that. The other route is for another team to outperform its projections.

That team probably would need to be Arizona State — unless you think USC, Cal, Oregon State, Utah, or Washington can win out. With games at K-State and vs. BYU, if the Sun Devils go 4-1 down the stretch to get to 9-3, they’ll have a win against at least one of them and probably be ranked. In that case, maybe the Alamo goes for ASU, the Holiday jumps for Colorado, and the Cougs “settle” for Vegas.