The Big Ten has a rich history in bowl games, and the expectations are it will continue in 2023 — we think.
Here at Buckeyes Wire, we keep the tradition going and look at where we think all of the teams in the conference will end up when the dust settles on the season. We reevaluate after each week’s games and predict where teams will be traveling for the holidays based on what our eyeballs tell us.
At the end of the regular season, nine conference teams are bowl eligible: Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Iowa, Rutgers, Maryland, Northwestern, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The latter thanks to it being the best of the five-win teams based on APR score and not enough Football Bowl Subdivision teams getting to six wins.
The big three in the East division are likely headed to a very lucrative bowl, while Michigan and Iowa will battle it out in Indy for the Big Ten championship in what is probably going to be a public flogging on national television.
We try to figure out where all the teams in the conference will go bowling, and which four teams will make the College Football Playoff with just the conference championship games to go.
Keep in mind the scenarios are very complicated with bowl tie-ins and contractual preferences for teams that have not been involved in certain locations, so we do our best to track it all. We also throw in the College Football Playoff picks as a cherry on top of it all.
Below is a look at the bowl predictions for Big Ten teams and complete playoff picks after Week 13, the end of the 2023 regular season.