New Year’s Six Bowl Projections 2017: San Diego State rising in Week 4

5 of 6

PASADENA, CA – JANUARY 02: An aerial view prior to the 2017 Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual between the USC Trojans and the Penn State Nittany Lions at the Rose Bowl on January 2, 2017 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Tournament of Roses – Pool/Getty Images) /

Rose Bowl (Playoff No.1)

Rose Bowl (Playoff No. 1): Oklahoma vs. USC
Where: Rose Bowl Stadium (Pasadena, Calif.)
When: Jan. 1, 2018, at 4:30 p.m. ET on ESPN
Last week’s projection: Oklahoma vs. USC

In full honesty and disclosure, I was ready to put Penn State in the Rose Bowl and actually did at one point. Why? Because USC’s overtime victory against Texas essentially had me doing it. While both teams put on the best game of the season so far, I actually liked to see the Longhorns get tested against a team like Texas. For the first three games of the season, we’ve seen the Trojans face the best shot from every team and they’ve passed the test. In these projections, it’s simple, you win and you stay.

For the Oklahoma Sooners, it was good to see this team maintain their winning ways as they defeated Tulane this past weekend. Oklahoma will now enter the always fascinating Big 12 play. The Sooners travel to Baylor and while this isn’t the Baylor of old, Oklahoma needs to maintain their championship form if they want to maintain their spot in next week’s projections.

Week 4 Impact: Both go on the road to places that have been troublesome traditionally but I don’t expect to see any trouble from their opponents this week. However, a struggle or even a loss by either team and look for a furious race for a spot in the Rose Bowl come next week.

Home/College Football News