The first official week of college football is finally over and everyone is having their hot takes from just one data point. ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach have made their bowl projections, which will undoubtably change between now and when the matchups are announced. Find out where Notre Dame landed along with the New Year’s Six and College Football Playoff pairings and who advances to the CFP Finals.
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The Gators make an appearance here, projected to make a return trip to Miami for the Orange Bowl, which they won over Virginia last season.
Predicting end-of-season bowl matchups is a bit of a guessing game right now. The number of FBS squads competing this fall has shrunk from 130 to 76, meaning that not all 43 bowl games will be able to be filled.
The lack of participation from the Big Ten and Pac-12 will also impact conference tie-ins for these matchups, making it extremely difficult to project postseason matchups.
USA TODAY Sports tried its hand, however, releasing predicted matchups for this season’s College Football Playoff and New Year’s Six Bowl games.
The Gators make an appearance here, projected to make a return trip to Miami for the Orange Bowl, which they won over Virginia last season. This time around, college sports editor Erick Smith foresees a matchup with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, who are usually a football independent but will be competing in the ACC this fall.
With the smaller field of teams, the SEC has a good representation in these predictions, with two squads (Alabama and Georgia) projected to make the College Football Playoff, and three more (Florida, LSU and Texas A&M) slated for the NY6.
Alabama is predicted to win its semifinal over Oklahoma and face Clemson, not the Bulldogs, in the National Championship. Meanwhile, LSU is given a date with Virginia Tech in the Peach Bowl, while Texas A&M faces Oklahoma State in the Cotton Bowl.
CBS Sports analyst Jerry Palm tried his hand at projecting the bowl season this fall, projecting UF missing the CFP but making it to the NY6
There are numerous uncertainties surrounding the college football postseason in 2020. It’s currently unclear if we will even have a season in the first place, let alone how a bowl season could be conducted given the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s almost guaranteed that some bowls will be cut and qualifications for eligibility will be lowered as two leagues in both the Power Five and Group of Five have canceled the fall seasons.
With this in mind, CBS Sports analyst Jerry Palm tried his hand at projecting the bowl season this fall.
It remains to be seen how cancelations from the Big Ten, Pac-12 and others will impact the bowl season, but Palm’s projections help give us an idea. He has three SEC teams in New Year’s Six games, as well as two teams from the American Athletic Conference.
Palm has the Gators missing the College Football Playoff but making it to the New Year’s Six for the third time in as many seasons. He projects a return trip to the Orange Bowl in Miami, which Florida won against Virginia last season.
Georgia football 2020 opens with the Virginia Cavaliers in Atlanta on September 7th, in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff game.
ATLANTA, Ga.–Palpable excitement is already building in certain circles in Atlanta for the University of Georgia Bulldogs college football season opener. Considered by many to be the world capital of college football, winning more in the nationally prominent games played in downtown Atlanta is of the utmost importance if Kirby Smart’s program is going to be atop the tip of the upper echelon of the old sport, entering its 151st season.
Under Coach Smart, Georgia has fared extremely well at Grant Field in Midtown Atlanta while playing its in-state rival. But after opening 2-0 in big games played in the domes (Georgia Dome, Mercedes-Benz Stadium), UGA has somewhat alarmingly dropped three straight such contests. Each loss came to a powerful SEC West opponent: a national championship overtime defeat to Bama; a near replay of that game featuring the same two programs in an eerily similar SEC championship game; finally, a disheartening blowout at the hands of the current national champions, LSU.
Opening with the ACC’s Virginia Cavaliers in Atlanta could get the big city mojo flowing in the right direction. Georgia is plainly planning a return trip for a fourth straight SEC championship game and well-positioned amongst the favorites to win the SEC title.
The action commences on September 7th, on the holiday weekend Monday. UGA will be playing football on back-to-back weekdays for the first time, after beating Baylor in a midweek Sugar Bowl, on the first day of the new decade. Winning a New Year’s 6 bowl definitely pushed Georgia in a positive direction.
Hoos ahead for Dawgs: The Bulldogs are 1-1 in Chick-fil-A Kickoff games, including 1-1 versus the ACC, with a defeat of North Carolina in Kirby Smart’s head coaching debut in 2016. UGA and UVa met twice in Atlanta for Peach Bowls, which I attended. Virginia won 34-27 in 1995 after a gallant comeback effort by polyglot quarterback Hines Ward came up short in the final seconds, in Ray Goff’s final game as a coach. After that defeat, the all-time series stood at even. Then, Georgia was able to win the next two meetings between the programs, a narrow 35-33 escape in Atlanta in 1998 and a 37-14 blowout in Hawaii for the Jeep Oahu Bowl of 2000, in Jim Donnan’s last game coaching.
Nov 16, 2019; Clemson, SC, USA; Wake Forest Demon Deacons quarterback Jamie Newman (12) drops back to pass the ball against the Clemson Tigers during the second half at Clemson Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Joshua S. Kelly-USA TODAY Sports
Virginia, who finished ranked 25th in the final Coaches Poll off a competitive defeat by the Florida Gators in the Orange Bowl, of the New Year’s 6, should be familiar with grad transfer quarterback Jamie Newman, a former Wake Forest Demon Deacon.
Kirby Smart is 4-0 in season openers as a head coach.
