Selection Sunday is just over one month away and the Colorado St. Rams and the Colorado Buffaloes are both squarely on the bubble. They desperately need to pick up marquee wins and to avoid bad losses to vie for an at-large bid. In the latest Bubble Watch on SB Nation the amount bids up in the air for these bubble teams are down to 16. Here is the breakdown of available bids:
20 Locks and 9 Looking Good = 29 teams are in good shape.
6 of those 29 hold their conference's auto bid at the moment, so that means 23 at-larges are accounted for.
37 Total At-Large Bids - these 23 = 16 Available Bids
Sixteen projected available bids are not many considering there are 40 teams who are in the bubble conversation, but need more work. That 40 number is actually more like 33 since Conference USA, the Missouri Valley and the WCC are expected to be one bid leagues but have multiple teams in the 'work to do' section.
For Colorado and Colorado St. to make some noise as at-large teams they both need to first beat who they are expected to beat and then pull off an upset or two along the way. Colorado's problem is that they are terrible on the road with only a 3-7 record, and look for that record to drop to eight losses since the Buffs travel to take on No. 15 Missouri this Saturday. Colorado has plenty of chances to make up ground in the last eight regular season games as they play four ranked teams with only the Missouri game being on the road.
As for Colorado St., they have been coming up short in big games as they lost to San Diego State at the buzzer and gave BYU a decent run when they played. The Rams last eight games are no cakewalk either, as five are on the road. traveling to Wyoming, TCU, Air Force, San Diego St. and BYU. Then their three remaining three home games are all must win with two being against fellow bubble teams in New Mexico and UNLV
The NCAA selection committee looks hard at a team's last 10 games, so now is the time for Colorado and Colorado State to start picking up their game.