College football bowl projections after Week 9: Washington State smelling the roses

College football bowl projections after Week 9. Find out who is projected to play in the College Football Playoff and who makes a New Year’s Six bowl.

Three of the top five and five of the top 11 teams in the nation were idle this week so there wasn’t a great deal of movement to disrupt this week’s college football bowl projections as far as the College Football Playoff is concerned.

However, there is some movement when it comes to the New Year’s Six bowl games after Georgia and Florida battled in their annual SEC rivalry game, Penn State and Iowa engaged in a Big Ten slugfest and the Pac-12 after dark special that saw Washington State comeback and beat Stanford in Palo Alto. But the biggest shake-up came in Stillwater where Oklahoma State upset Texas to end their hopes of getting into the Playoff or New Year’s Six mix.

College Football Playoff

It’s the same four teams and the same two matchups as last week. I have Alabama meeting Michigan Cotton Bowl and Clemson meeting Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl.

• Cotton Bowl (Dec. 29): No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 4 Michigan
• Orange Bowl (Dec. 29): No. 2 Clemson vs. No. 3 Notre Dame

New Year’s Six

• Peach Bowl (Dec. 29): UCF vs. Georgia
• Fiesta Bowl (Dec. 29): Oklahoma vs. Kentucky
• Rose Bowl (Dec. 29): Ohio State vs. Washington State
• Sugar Bowl (Dec. 29): West Virginia vs. LSU

If these projections hold true, I’m very excited to see how the Peach Bowl shakes out as it would be the second year in a row for UCF to play in that after being snubbed by the Playoff committee. I don’t think they get in the four-team field, even if they go undefeated for the second year in a row. They could look to take it out on Georgia, just like they did vs. Auburn a year ago.

I’m not sure how excited Ohio State fans would be about making the Rose Bowl because it’s a consolation prize after missing out on the Playoff and winning the Big Ten. That said, a game against Washington State would make for a fun watch with the first one to 42 being named the winner.

A Sugar Bowl with LSU is always a good time and I’d like to see Will Grier and the West Virginia offense go head-to-head with the Tigers defense.

Kentucky has been the biggest surprise this year but they’d get rewarded with a game against Kyler Murray and Oklahoma who would be fuming after being left out of the Playoff. This could be a lopsided affair, but we should know not to count out this Kentucky team.