College Football Bowl Projections 2018: Big Changes in New Year’s Six after Week 9

Two top 10 teams went down in Week 9 causing some major changes in this week’s College Football Playoff and bowl projections.

A few big upsets in Week 9 have provided a shift in the bowl projections, particularly at the top of the New Year’s Six. The College Football Playoff is unchanged from a week ago with two of the top four teams from last week on bye weeks, while the other two handled their business against overmatched foes.

There was still a slew of upsets with Texas falling on the road to Oklahoma State, and PAC-12 powers Washington and Oregon flopping against unranked oppositions, drastically reducing both of their chances of getting into a New Year’s Six bowl game as a result.

This week, we’ve got three new teams making an appearance in the New Year’s Six projections, and a slew of other teams have either clinched, or moved closer to bowl berths.

As anticipated, this week provided the first time it was necessary to dig into the NCAA’s APR rankings to fill all the bowl slots. I’m now projecting there to be three open slots for teams with 5 wins to jump up to. Which teams benefit from the APR rankings to make this week’s projected field? What new teams have jumped into the New Year’s Six?

Let’s dive into the Week 9 projections and find out: