College Football Playoff, 2022 New Year’s Six projections after Week 3

Orange Bowl

Miami v Penn State 

Previous Week

Miami v Michigan State 

After one week on the NY6 slate, the Spartans fell hard in their first real challenge at Washington. One of the toughest places to play in the country, UW is going through a resurgence as Michael Penix Jr torched an MSU defense for 39 points. As one Big Ten team falls, another rises to take their place. Welcome to the Orange Bowl, Penn State.

Penn State had one of the more impressive wins this weekend, going on the road at Auburn and winning convincingly 41-12. This is not a great Auburn team, but that should not take away from what Penn State did. They pushed the Tigers around, in a way we haven’t seen a Big Ten team do to an SEC team in recent memory. The Nittany Lions ran for over 200 yards and 4 touchdowns, shocking the home crowd. Penn State will travel to Michigan next month and host Ohio State shortly after that.

We’ll get a great look at how special this season can be for them, but for now, we have them partying in South Beach.

Projected to meet the Nittany Lions in the Orange Bowl is the projected ACC champion Miami Hurricanes.

We saw Miami in a tough environment at Texas A&M, and while they offensively fell on the face, they defensively looked the part of an NY6 team.

I expect Tyler Van Dyke and the offense to get healthier and more in sync as the season progresses, matching a defense that really held their own at College Station. While most will project Clemson in this position, I continue to be concerned by their lack of offensive firepower, so Miami is projected to win the ACC and get the Orange Bowl home game.