College football's bowl season is inching closer, and it's never too early to take a look at what the matchups might look like. With 13 weeks of results in the books, the bowl picture for nearly every team is starting to clear. 

The post-Week 13 bowl projections are a mixture between how things would look if the season ended today, projection of Week 14, and considering the results so far this year. 

The mission for Notre Dame on Saturday night is very simple. The Fighting Irish are 60 minutes away from playing for a national championship in early January. With a win, Notre Dame can go ahead and book a trip to Miami. The Irish are virtually locked into a BCS bowl, but there’s no question this team wants to be 12-0 and playing for the national title, rather than 11-1 and making a trip to the Sugar or Fiesta Bowl.

Each week, the Athlon editors and others who closely follow college football vote on the most prestigious award in the sport. A 13-man conglomerate of college football gurus from Athlon Sports and other publications cast their votes for their top Heisman Trophy candidates. The votes will be tallied and the results will be posted as the Athlon Sports Heisman Watch List every week of the regular season.

Pep bands, cheerleaders, tailgating, student sections, cornhole and especially rivalries. All of which makes college football the greatest sport on the planet. The Athlon Sports editorial staff put its collective heads together and ranked the Top 25 rivalries in college football:

Week 12 of the 2012 college football season is in the books and plenty of coaches saw the temperature on their seat increase by a few degrees. And it was a busy week in the coaching carousel, as Tennessee's Derek Dooley and Western Michigan's Bill Cubit were fired after Saturday's games. UTEP's Mike Price also announced his retirement, which means there are five FBS open jobs going into Week 13.

Expansion never stops in college football and another domino fell on Monday: Maryland will be leaving the ACC to become the 13^th member of the Big Ten.

Syracuse and Pittsburgh are set to join the ACC in 2013, which would have given the conference 14 teams. However, with the Terrapins set to depart, the ACC is back to 13 teams and unbalanced divisions for its long-term outlook.

College football's bowl season is inching closer, and it's never too early to take a look at what the matchups might look like. With 12 weeks of results in the books, it's beginning to get easier to make projections about which teams will be eligible for the postseason.

Each week, the Athlon editors and others who closely follow college football vote on the most prestigious award in the sport. A 13-man conglomerate of college football gurus from Athlon Sports and other publications cast their votes for their top Heisman Trophy candidates. The votes will be tallied and the results will be posted as the Athlon Sports Heisman Watch List every week of the regular season.

Week 11 of the 2012 college football season is in the books and plenty of coaches saw the temperature on their seat increase by a few degrees. Boston College's Frank Spaziani remains the top spot in the hot seat watch, followed closely by Auburn's Gene Chizik, Tennessee's Derek Dooley and California's Jeff Tedford in the top five.

College Football's Top 20 Coaches on the Hot Seat: Post-Week 11 Rankings

College football's bowl season is inching closer, but it's never too early to take a look at what the matchups might look like. With 11 weeks of results in the books, it's beginning to get easier to make projections about which teams will be eligible for the postseason.