There is no change among the teams in projected to be in the College Football Playoff or the other New Year's Six games this week. Those 12 teams mostly dominated their games, winning by an average of 39 points.
That includes No. 2 Clemson's two point win at Texas A&M. The Tigers were the only team that got challenged in any significant way. In fact, if not for a few mistakes by the Aggies, we would be talking about the most important upset of the early season. Clemson survived though, and there really isn't any reason to be concerned about the Tigers yet. Rarely does anyone win a championship wire-to-wire without being challenged once or twice during the regular season.
Even Stanford had it relatively easy in the best game on paper among the teams projected for the New Year's Six. The No. 10 Cardinal downed No. 17 USC and were never seriously threatened by the Trojans in a 17-3 win.
2019 College Football Playoff
DATE GAME / LOC. TIME / TV MATCHUP PREDICTION
Jan. 7
National Championship
Santa Clara, Calif.
8 p.m.
ESPN
Title game Semifinal winners
Dec. 29
Cotton Bowl
Arlington, Tex.
4/8 p.m.
ESPN
Semifinal
(1) Alabama vs. (4) Oklahoma
Dec. 29
Orange Bowl
Miami
4/8 p.m.
ESPN
Semifinal
(2) Clemson vs. (3) Ohio State
Selection committee bowl games
DATE BOWL / LOC. TIME / TV MATCHUP PREDICTION
Jan. 1
Sugar
New Orleans
8:45 p.m.
ESPN
SEC vs. Big 12
Georgia vs. West Virginia
Jan. 1
Rose
Pasadena, Calif.
5 p.m.
ESPN
Big Ten vs. Pac-12
Wisconsin vs. Washington
Jan. 1
Fiesta
Glendale, Ariz.
1 p.m.
ESPN
At-large vs. At-large
Stanford vs. Boise State
Dec. 29
Peach
Atlanta
Noon
ESPN
At-large vs. At-large
Auburn vs. Penn State
One new team to this week's projections is Kentucky, which ended a 31-game losing streak to Florida by beating the Gators 27-16 in Gainesville. I guess Dan Mullen has a lot of work to do to get Florida back to being competitive in the SEC East. Of course, that is true for everybody after the message Georgia sent to the rest of the division in a 51-10 pummeling of South Carolina.
Arkansas showed why SEC teams rarely leave the South for a nonconference game. The Razorbacks went to Colorado State and lost 34-27. The Rams entered the game at 0-2 and had not looked very good in either loss but scored 25 unanswered points in the last 18 minutes to stun Arkansas. Mississippi State did look good in its Midwestern test, easily handling Kansas State 31-10 in Manhattan, Kansas.
The league has two more nonconference games outside the South. Next week, the SEC invades the state of Indiana. Missouri figures to be a heavy favorite at Purdue, while Vanderbilt will likely be a huge underdog at Notre Dame.
Weather played havoc with a lot of games again this week, but fortunately, none were canceled. Last week, Akron at Nebraska and South Dakota at Iowa State were both canceled, leaving all three FBS teams involved with just 11 games on their remaining schedules.
Each of those teams could find themselves in the same position Florida State was last season. The Seminoles needed to reschedule its canceled game with Louisiana-Monroe to have enough wins to become bowl eligible. Currently, Akron and Iowa State are projected to have five wins, while the Cornhuskers are projected for four. Nebraska is a pretty strong APR team and would be a good candidate for a spot at 5-7 if such a team is needed this season.
However, in the current projections, there are no 5-7 teams. I have exactly 78 bowl eligible teams for the 39 games, so no 6-6 teams are being left out either.
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