There is a strong argument that the American benefits from Marshall getting the G5 bid. If 3-loss Houston knocks off undefeated Cincinnati, you can spin it as strength of the American conference schedule - especially if Cincy and others have some quality OOC wins. And point to Marshall's cake-walk Conference USA schedule.
In fact, a similar result is predicted by some pre-season magazines. They have Marshall at #27 wining the G5 bid. Cincinnati (#31) and UCF (#33), along with Houston and ECU will beat each other up to keep any one of them out of the top-25.
But, here's the kicker:
Sugar Bowl: 1 Florida State vs 4 Oregon
Rose Bowl: 2 Alabama vs 3 Oklahoma
Orange Bowl: 21 Clemson vs 6 Auburn
Cotton Bowl: 5 Ohio State vs 10 Stanford
Fiesta Bowl: 7 UCLA vs 9 Baylor
Peach Bowl: 8 Michigan State vs 27 MARSHALL
Marshall likely gets HAMMERED by Michigan St. in the Peach Bowl. So, again, the American could point to the fact that they have strong in-conference competition and that Marshall simply skated through a cupcake C-USA slate.
http://preseason.stassen.com/consensus/2014.html
[FWIW, I actually think Marshall would play #10 Stanford in the Fiesta Bowl in this scenario. #5 Ohio St. would go to the Orange Bowl against Clemson, #6 Auburn and #7 UCLA would meet in the Cotton Bowl, and #8 Michigan St. and #9 Baylor would play at the Peach Bowl.]
Here's the Orange Bowl press release link that states that the Orange Bowl takes the ACC Champion (or replacement) against the HIGHEST RANKED out of the Big Ten, SEC, and Notre Dame (with minimum three appearances for the Big Ten and SEC and maximum of two appearances for Notre Dame - with no minimum - over the 12-year contract).
http://community.orangebowl.org/assets/3...artner.pdf