Bowl projections after Week 11: Syracuse to the Peach Bowl

Here are the bowl projections for the College Football Playoff and New Year’s Six bowl games after the Week 11 slate of games.

The last few weeks have offered plenty of upsets in the Top 10 as College Football Playoff pretenders were separated from the contenders. There were seven ranked teams to lose in Week 11, but none of them in the Top 10, so there won’t be much changing in the next College Football Playoff rankings. However, there is a little wrinkle for the New Year’s Six bowl games with the loss by Kentucky to Tennessee. It’s been a rough year for the Vols but they can take solace in the fact that they likely ended any chance of the Wildcats playing in a New Year’s Six bowl.

With Kentucky no longer projected to play in a New Year’s Six bowl, there is a new team in our latest bowl projections. And I feel strongly that no one saw this coming a few months ago. Heck, no one might have seen this coming a few days ago, but here we are.

Let’s begin with the College Football Playoff projections for the two games played on Dec. 29.

College Football Playoff projection

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

This is what was projected last week and with all four winning convincingly this week, they all remain in the same spots. The only real drama that awaits is if Syracuse can upset Notre Dame and if Ohio State gets Michigan in the season finale. It doesn’t look like anyone can challenge Alabama or Clemson within their conference.

New Year’s Six selection committee games

• Sugar Bowl (SEC vs. Big 12): Georgia vs. Oklahoma
• Fiesta Bowl (at-large vs. at-large): UCF vs. LSU
• Rose Bowl (Big Ten vs. Pac-12): Ohio State vs. Washington State
• Peach Bowl (at-large vs. at-large): Syracuse vs. West Virginia

The Sugar, Rose and Fiesta Bowls are all the same as last week as all those teams prevailed. The wrinkle comes at the Peach Bowl where Kentucky is bounced in favor of Syracuse who projected to be the highest-ranked at-large team. This decision was easier after NC State lost on Thursday night to Wake Forest.