Bowl projections: How No. 13 BYU can earn a New Year's Six bowl berth
We see a path for BYU to make it to a New Year’s Six bowl game.
The Cougars moved up one spot from No. 14 to No. 13 in Tuesday’s second edition of the 2020 College Football Playoff rankings. That’s two spots below where BYU needs to be to get a spot in a prestigious bowl game.
But BYU can make up those spots and maybe one or two more. Especially if it beats Coastal Carolina in a game that was hastily scheduled on Thursday.
The Cougars are currently behind No. 9 Iowa State, No. 11 Oklahoma and No. 12 Indiana. Let’s start with the Hoosiers, who play at No. 16 Wisconsin on Saturday without QB Michael Penix Jr. after he tore his ACL in the team’s win over Maryland. A loss at Wisconsin will undoubtedly drop Indiana behind BYU in next week’s rankings. There’s one spot.
The other could come via the Big 12 title game, where ISU and OU are likely to play each other. The loser of that game will have three losses. BYU, with wins over Coastal and San Diego State, will be undefeated.
In that circumstance, it’s hard to see how the committee could keep a three-loss Big 12 team ahead of the Cougars — even if the committee is insistent that BYU’s pandemic-induced schedule is a real detriment to its New Year’s Six hopes.
If BYU leaps the Big 12 loser and Indiana, it will be at No. 11 in the final CFP rankings on Dec. 20. With the Pac-12 champion potentially outside the top 12, that should be enough for BYU to get an at-large berth into a big bowl game. And right now, we’re thinking that would be the Fiesta Bowl.
How projecting bowls is different in 2020
It’s a bit of a crapshoot doing bowl projections this year. The Sun Bowl became the eighth bowl to be canceled when it announced Tuesday that it wouldn’t be held for the first time since 1935. As of now, there are 34 bowl games still scheduled for 2020-21.
Teams don’t have to get to six wins to make a bowl game either. The NCAA waived the win requirement ahead of the season when it became obvious that teams weren’t going to be playing full 12-game seasons. That lack of a win requirement coupled with the varying number of games that teams are playing doesn’t make the bowl selection process nearly as straightforward as it normally would be.
That’s why you’re seeing teams like LSU and Tennessee in the projections below. They’re going to finish with losing records in 2020. But the SEC has bowl contracts to fill and the removal of the win requirement allows the conference to fill its allotted slots.
There aren’t that many Pac-12 teams listed below either. The conference has taken the brunt of the bowl cancellation hit with the Las Vegas Bowl, Redbox Bowl, Sun Bowl and Holiday Bowl all getting wiped out from the conference’s lineup.
Here are our first set of bowl projections. These could change a lot over the next two weeks as we potentially get more clarity into this year’s bowl process.
Dec. 19
Frisco Bowl
SMU vs. UTSA
Dec. 21
Myrtle Beach Bowl
UCF vs. Appalachian State
Dec. 22
Potato Bowl
Buffalo vs. Boise State
Boca Raton Bowl
Florida Atlantic vs. Kent State
Dec. 23
New Orleans Bowl
Coastal Carolina vs. Marshall
Montgomery Bowl
San Diego State vs. Louisiana Tech
Dec. 24
New Mexico Bowl
Tulsa vs. Louisiana
Dec. 25
Camellia Bowl
Western Michigan vs. Troy
Dec. 26
Gasparilla Bowl
Memphis vs. Wake Forest
Cure Bowl
Georgia Southern vs. Tulane
First Responder Bowl
Pitt vs. TCU
LendingTree Bowl
Ball State vs. Georgia State
Independence Bowl
Colorado vs. Army
Guaranteed Rate Bowl
Maryland vs. Kansas State
Dec. 28
Military Bowl
Boston College vs. Houston
Dec. 29
Cheez-It Bowl
North Carolina vs. Texas
Alamo Bowl
Iowa State vs. Oregon
Dec. 30
Duke’s Mayo Bowl
Virginia vs. Iowa
Music City Bowl
Indiana vs. Kentucky
Cotton Bowl (New Year’s Six)
Texas A&M vs. Oklahoma
LA Bowl
Washington vs. San Jose State
Dec. 31
Armed Forces Bowl
UAB vs. North Texas
Liberty Bowl
West Virginia vs. Tennessee
Arizona Bowl
Central Michigan vs. Fresno State
Texas Bowl
Oklahoma State vs. LSU
Jan. 1
Birmingham Bowl
Liberty vs. Nevada
Peach Bowl (New Year’s Six)
Georgia vs. Cincinnati
Citrus Bowl
Northwestern vs. Auburn
Rose Bowl (CFP semifinal)
Clemson vs. Ohio State
Sugar Bowl (CFP semifinal)
Alabama vs. Notre Dame
Jan. 2
Gator Bowl
North Carolina State vs. Ole Miss
Outback Bowl
Wisconsin vs. Missouri
Fiesta Bowl (New Year’s Six)
USC vs. BYU
Orange Bowl (New Year’s Six)
Florida vs. Miami
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