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

December 21

Makers Wanted Bahamas Bowl: Cincinnati vs. UAB
12:30 pm ET, ESPN – Nassau, Bahamas

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: Boise State vs. Northern Illinois
4 pm ET, ESPN – Boise, Idaho

December 22

Birmingham Bowl: Memphis vs. Pittsburgh
Noon ET, ESPN – Birmingham, Alabama

Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl: Houston vs. Army
3:30 pm ET, ESPN – Fort Worth, Texas

Dollar General Bowl: Louisiana vs. Akron
7 pm ET, ESPN – Mobile, Alabama

Hawai’i Bowl: Hawai’i vs. Louisiana Tech
10:30 pm ET, ESPN – Honolulu, Hawai’i

December 26

SERVPRO First Responder Bowl: North Texas vs. Arizona State
1:30 pm ET, ESPN – Dallas, Texas

Quick Lane Bowl: Maryland vs. Georgia Tech
5:15 pm ET, ESPN – Detroit, Michigan

Cheez-It Bowl: USC vs. Utah State
9 pm ET, ESPN – Phoenix, Arizona

The skinny

Houston should be considered the biggest threat to UCF’s reign in the AAC, and therefore a real threat to steal the group-of-five’s bid into the New Year’s Six. The Cougars rolled past previously unbeaten South Florida on Saturday, and could potentially be ranked in the Top 20 in the first playoff rankings by the committee.

Pittsburgh and Kansas State have the same APR score of 984, so it would be between those two for the third and final bowl spot. I give Pittsburgh the slight edge currently due their path to bowl eligibility looking just a little bit clearer than Kansas State’s at the moment following the Panthers’ win over Duke on Saturday.

USC is teetering toward the wrong side of bowl eligibility after their loss to Arizona State. It is far from a foregone conclusion that the Trojans will be bowling this year, which would be unacceptable regardless of the roster turnover in Los Angeles. It’s getting tougher and tougher to imagine Clay Helton sticking around at USC for another year.