Week 13 College Football Bowl Projections

Want to know where your team is likely to go bowling? Here are my current projections for all 39 FBS bowl games, including the CFP.

ACC

The ACC has a “Tier I” bowl pool consisting of the Sun, Belk, Music City, and Pinstripe Bowls. After Notre Dame and Virginia are selected for the Camping World and Citrus Bowls, the next group of four teams, as of now, will be Pitt, Wake Forest, Louisville, and Miami (Fl). Miami played in the Pinstripe Bowl, Virginia played in the Belk Bowl, and Pitt played in the Sun Bowl last year, so it would be very surprising for those bowls to repeat those teams this year.

Big Ten

The Big Ten bowl situation is complicated. In essence, the league works with all of the bowls to secure the best possible destination. However, the contracts stipulate that, for the main Big Ten bowls, that each bowl needs at least five different teams in six years. This is the sixth and final year of these contracts. The Outback Bowl is the only bowl to not meet that stipulation yet. Therefore, the Outback Bowl cannot host Iowa, Wisconsin, or Michigan this year. While removing those three, as well as NY6 teams Ohio State, Penn State, and Minnesota from the equation, the only real Outback Bowl choice is Indiana.

SEC

The SEC has a pool of six bowls. Those will be Auburn, Texas A&M, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi State for the Outback, Gator, Music City, Texas, Belk, and Liberty Bowls. Because of Missouri’s pending bowl ban and the weakness of the SEC’s bottom teams this year (and with two SEC teams currently in Playoff slots), there will only be five teams for this pool of six bowls. Therefore, the Liberty Bowl will not get an SEC team. If Missouri’s bowl ban is overturned before bowl season (or the appeal extends past the bowl game), then Missouri would likely enter the Texas Bowl, moving Tennessee to the Liberty Bowl.