Bowl projections entering Week 13: Penn State to Rose Bowl, Florida to Cotton Bowl
By John Buhler
We have a few shake-ups with the college football bowl projections for the New Year’s Six, thanks to a Minnesota Golden Gophers loss.
Week 12 gave college football fans several exciting games that shake up the latest bowl projections. In the three marquee games of the day, the Minnesota Golden Gophers fell to the Iowa Hawkeyes at Kinnick Stadium, the Georgia Bulldogs held on to beat the Auburn Tigers at Jordan-Hare and the Baylor Bears blew a 28-3 lead at home to lose to the Oklahoma Sooners in primetime.
So it’s only natural that the bowl projections for the New Year’s Six shake up every slightly. There are only two weeks left of the regular season with Championship Weekend rapidly approaching. A few teams might be on bye before playing a huge rival during Thanksgiving Weekend, but most schools have played 10 games of their 12-game regular-season slate.
So let’s get right to it. Here are the latest New Year’s Six bowl projections heading into Week 13.
College Football Playoff
Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl (Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, GA, Saturday, Dec. 28)
No. 1 LSU Tigers (13-0) vs. No. 4 Oregon Ducks (12-1)
Nothing has changed here from last week. The LSU Tigers won the Magnolia Bowl over the Ole Miss Rebels to improve to 10-0. They are the projected top seed as the undefeated SEC Champion, so they will choose to go to Atlanta for back-to-back games and play in the Peach Bowl. The Oregon Ducks get in as the No. 4 seed as the one-loss Pac-12 champion.
PlayStation Fiesta Bowl (State Farm Stadium, Glendale, AZ, Saturday, Dec. 28)
No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes (13-0) vs. No. 3 Clemson Tigers (13-0)
The Fiesta Bowl holds steady as well, as the undefeated Big Ten Champion Ohio State Buckeyes will get the No. 2 seed and will face the No. 3 seed in the undefeated ACC Champion Clemson Tigers. Ohio State will edge out Clemson for the No. 2 seed thanks to navigating a tougher regular-season schedule where they actually played and beat ranked teams.
New Year’s Six
Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic (AT&T Stadium, Arlington, TX, Saturday, Dec. 28)
Memphis Tigers (12-1) vs. Florida Gators (10-2)
The Memphis Tigers will represent the Group of 5 in the New Year’s Six, thanks to a home win vs. the Cincinnati Bearcats at regular season’s end before the AAC title bout. Meeting them in the Cotton Bowl Classic will be a two-loss, non-champion Florida Gators team, whose only defeats were to cross-divisional rival LSU and SEC East rival Georgia down in Jacksonville.
Capital One Orange Bowl (Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, FL, Monday, Dec. 30)
Virginia Cavaliers (9-4) vs. Georgia Bulldogs (11-2)
Somebody has to represent the ACC in the Orange Bowl with Clemson making it to College Football Playoff. The ACC is so bad that a four-loss ACC Coastal Champion Virginia Cavaliers team will make it to Miami in January. Meeting them there in Hard Rock Stadium will be SEC East Champion Georgia, who comes up short against LSU in Atlanta on Championship Saturday.
Rose Bowl presented by Northwestern Mutual (Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA, Wednesday, Jan. 1)
Penn State Nittany Lions (10-2) vs. Utah Utes (11-2)
With Minnesota losing to Iowa, guess who takes Golden Gophers’ spot at the Rose Bowl? It would be Penn State, who as a two-loss, non-champion would have the second-best resume in the Big Ten after Ohio State. Since Oregon reaches the College Football Playoff, the Utah Utes will represent the Pac-12 for the right to play in the Rose Bowl as that conference’s second-best team.
Allstate Sugar Bowl (Mercedes-Benz Superdome, New Orleans, LA, Wednesday, Jan. 1)
Alabama Crimson Tide (11-1) vs. Oklahoma Sooners (12-1)
The Alabama Crimson Tide will represent the SEC in the Sugar Bowl as a one-loss, non-champion. With LSU reaching the Playoff, the Crimson Tide will edge out Georgia for the Sugar Bowl bid by only having its one loss to LSU. Meeting Alabama in New Orleans will be a one-loss Power 5 champion, as that Kansas State Wildcats defeat will keep the Sooners out of the Playoff.
Little by little, teams will be eliminated from the College Football Playoff picture as they do every year. From there, we’ll have a better understanding of which 12 teams will make up the New Year’s Six bowl games. Expect these projections to change after another week’s worth of games after next Saturday.
Next. Best college football players of all time from every state. dark
For more NCAA football news, analysis, opinion and unique coverage by FanSided, including Heisman Trophy and College Football Playoff rankings, be sure to bookmark these pages.