Stop me if you have heard this one before: A major upset has shaken up the College Football Playoff projections. In Week 7, it was the Purdue Boilermakers Spoilermakers knocking off previously unbeaten Iowa, 24-7. The Hawkeyes had been projected as the No. 2 seed, but they have dropped out of the playoff field for now.
Maybe they will come back later. That's what's happening with Ohio State, which was in the preseason CFP projection but did not last long due to a Week 2 loss at home to Oregon. Now, the Buckeyes are back as the No. 3 seed, a spot predicated on winning out and securing the Big Ten championship.
But what of Oregon? If the Ducks finish 12-1, shouldn't they be ranked ahead of Ohio State? Perhaps, but they are not 12-1 in this projection. If they wind up with that record, the CFP Selection Committee will have a tough call. Head-to-head, which favors Oregon, is a factor in the committee's criteria, but so is strength of schedule. Ohio State would be coming out of a stacked Big Ten East. Oregon is coming through a relatively poor Pac-12. Strength of schedule would figure to heavily favor the Buckeyes. That is a problem for another time, though.
The projected No. 2 seed is now Oklahoma, which did something on Saturday that it had not done all season: win a game over an FBS opponent by more than seven points. Oklahoma throttled TCU 52-31. The Sooners are projected to face Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl.
Georgia remains the presumed top seed in the playoff following a 30-13 win over Kentucky. The loss was the first of the season for the Wildcats, which could find themselves in a New Year's Six bowl if they can win out and finish 11-1.
The Bulldogs are slated for a date in the Orange Bowl with Cincinnati. The Bearcats are still expected to be the No. 4 seed, though they should be the No. 2 team in the AP Top 25 on Sunday. Cincinnati did what was necessary with a dominant victory over UCF on Saturday.
College Football Playoff
| Date | Game / Loc. | Matchup | Prediction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan. 10 |
National Championship |
Title game | Semifinal winners |
| Dec. 31 |
Orange Bowl |
Semifinal | (1) Georgia vs. (4) Cincinnati |
| Dec. 31 |
Cotton Bowl |
Semifinal | (2) Oklahoma vs. (3) Ohio State |
There were only a couple of changes in the other New Year's Six projections, most notably with Iowa dropping down to replace Ohio State in the Rose Bowl; the Hawkeyes would face Pac-12 champion Oregon in that game.
NC State is now the projected ACC champion slotted for the Peach Bowl against Penn State. Oklahoma State, fresh off a win at Texas, is now projected as the Big 12 representative in the Sugar Bowl. The Cowboys would face Alabama.
New Year's Six bowl games
| Date | Bowl / Location | Matchup | Prediction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan. 1 |
Sugar |
SEC vs. Big 12 |
Alabama vs. Oklahoma State |
| Jan. 1 |
Rose |
Big Ten vs. Pac-12 |
Iowa vs. Oregon |
| Jan. 1 |
Fiesta |
At-large vs. At-large |
Notre Dame vs. Michigan |
| Dec. 30 |
Peach |
At-large vs. At-large |
Penn State vs. NC State |
With the Big Ten projected to have four teams in the New Year's Six games, the other bowls contracted to that league have been affected. The Citrus Bowl is expected to get a pretty good Michigan State team, but the Outback Bowl may find itself with a 7-5 team playing on New Year's Day. In this case, that team is expected to be Purdue. Minnesota, which beat the Boilermakers and is expected to have a better record, would not go to the Outback Bowl because the Gophers were just there in 2019. The league has a rule against teams repeating bowls too quickly.
There are still 10 teams in this week's bowl projections with records below .500. The Gasparilla and Hawaii Bowls each have two of those teams. Hawaii is projected to be 6-7, while the other nine teams are looking at 5-7 marks. The rule to allow sub-.500 teams to appear in bowl games when not enough teams were eligible was enacted in 2015. Since then, only five such teams have appeared in a bowl game, none since 2016.
Don't see your team? Check out the rest of Jerry Palm's updated bowl projections.
