New Year’s Six Bowl Projections 2017: San Diego State rising in Week 4
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San Diego State’s late night victory over Stanford lights up the Group of Five race for New Year’s Six bowl contention.
Saturday night could be described as strange, suspenseful, exciting and heartbreaking. So it was just another Saturday night of college football in America. However, while there were chances of the following projections changing completely, Saturday night did see some small but substantial movement that may last much longer than most expect.
We’ve got a new team into the New Year’s Six projections this week, San Diego State has supplanted the South Florida Bulls and now they are in the Group of Five spot for the time being. As for the rest of the projections, there is not much movement but there will be sooner rather than later.
Cotton Bowl Classic
Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic: Ohio State (at-large) vs. Georgia (at-large)
Where: AT&T Stadium (Dallas, Texas)
When: Dec. 29 at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN
Last week’s projection: Oklahoma vs. Stanford Dec. 29th (Ohio State) vs. (Georgia)
This Cotton Bowl matchup features two teams that have a chance to make some movement later on in the season but for right now it’s all about finding their way into the playoff and much more comfortable bowl positioning.
Both teams had successful weeks and are now inching closer into conference play. Georgia starts this week with Mississippi State and Ohio State hosts Rutgers in their conference opener next week. The Buckeyes are a team that needs to be looked at as they join Florida State in the group of one-loss teams who still have an outside chance at reaching the playoff.
Week 4 Impact: The biggest non-Alabama football game in the SEC this season so far occurs between Georgia and Mississippi State, how many of us saw that coming? Regardless of what happens from this week, I will more than likely slot the winner of that game into this spot next week. If there is further movement in front of either Bulldog team there is still a chance to move up but for now, the winner of the bulldog battle will be headed to the Cotton Bowl.
As for Ohio State, there is little chance for their opponent UNLV to pull off any upsets this week so expect Ohio State to stay in this spot unless things happen in front of them (i.e Penn State at Iowa)