Week 5 brought the biggest shakeup in our New Year’s Six and College Football Playoff projections. Familiar faces leave, while new ones appear.
It was a wild weekend of college football! At the beginning of the day, The West Virginia Mountaineers took care of business in Lubbock, knocking out the Texas Tech Red Raiders; while the Clemson Tigers avoided being upset for the second straight year by the Syracuse Orange.
Later Saturday evening the Notre Dame Fighting Irish made a statement by blowing out the Stanford Cardinal, 38-17 while the Ohio State Buckeyes came out of Happy Valley with a one-point win over the Penn State Nittany Lions. While one of these games impacted a conference, both had huge playoff implications, causing big changes to our New Year’s Six Bowl Projections.
But before we get into our updated New Year’s Six Projections, let’s take a look at what games could make even more changes to next week’s projections:
- The Texas Longhorns take on the Oklahoma Sooners, in a game that could ultimately lead to a rematch in the conference championship game.
- The LSU Tigers are on the road to take on the Florida Gators, who look to give the Tigers their first loss of the season.
- The Kentucky Wildcats travel to College Station to take on a pesky Texas A&M team looking to pick up their first win in three tries against a AP Top 25 opponent.
- The Notre Dame Fighting Irish enter the sandman, as they go up against the Virginia Tech Hokies who are looking for a big win to get back into playoff discussions.
The games are getting better and better as we get farther into the season. So many playoff implications take place this weekend, so strap in and get ready for another great weekend of college football! But for the time being, check out our updated New Year’s Six Projections: