Upsets Lead To Numerous Changes
A couple of times a year the college football world gets a shaken up like a giant “Etch A Sketch.” This past weekend was one of those as a couple of big upsets and a near upset caused some changes in our top tier games for this week. In addition it was a huge week for the Sun Belt. Who’s in the playoff and selection committee games? Let’s sort everything out with our 2022 Week Two Bowl Projections. As always if you’d like to see how things compare to Week One you can click here.
College Football Playoff
Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl- December 31st- (1) Georgia vs. (4) Oklahoma- Following their near loss to Texas we’re dropping Alabama out of the top spot. Kirby Smart’s club moves into the top seed after a 33-0 win over Samford.
The Sooners are 2-0 and really haven’t been tested yet but we’re moving them up to the playoff line based on their remaining schedule. They’ve only met once but it was one of the greatest games ever as the Bulldogs won the 2018 Rose Bowl 54-48.
Fiesta Bowl- December 31st- (2) Ohio State vs. (3) Alabama- The Buckeyes hold firm at number two after a 45-12 win over Arkansas State. As mentioned earlier it took Bryce Young saving the day as the Crimson Tide rallied late to knock off Texas 20-19.
College Football National Championship- January 9th- (1) Georgia vs. (2) Ohio State- If this result holds true this is only the second meeting all-time between the two schools. Georgia won the 1993 Citrus Bowl 21-14.
The next part of our 2022 Week One Bowl Projections move to the New Year’s Six games. With January 1st being on a Sunday the games are moved to other days so as to not compete with the NFL.
Selection Committee Games
Orange Bowl- December 30th- Clemson vs. Penn State- As a result of moving Oklahoma up to the playoff, the Tigers head to Florida as the ACC representative. With Wisconsin losing the Nittany Lions move up as well.
Sugar Bowl- December 31st- Baylor vs. Kentucky- It was a huge weekend for the Wildcats as they not only beat Florida in consecutive years for the first time since the 1970s, but Mark Stoops passed Bear Bryant as the school’s all-time wins leader. Their reward is a trip to New Orleans for New Year’s. With Oklahoma moving to the playoff we’re projecting the Bears as the Big 12 representative. The two schools are tied 2-2 in their series history with the Wildcats winning the last meeting all the way back in 1978.
Cotton Bowl- January 2nd- Cincinnati vs. Utah– Following the results of this weekend you can make a great case for Appalachian State, Marshall, or BYU. However, we are sticking with the Bearcats. The Utes shook off their loss at Florida with a 73-7 demolition of Southern Utah.
Rose Bowl- January 2nd- Michigan vs. USC- Jim Harbaugh’s club may have found their quarterback in J.J. McCarthy. The Trojans took care of business in a road win over Stanford. This is the first match-up of these schools since the 2007 Rose Bowl.
Continuing our 2022 week two bowl projections we head to the games usually played on New Year’s Day. As mentioned earlier all of these games have been moved so they don’t compete with the NFL. Also of note, the Outback Bowl is no more, it is now the ReliaQuest Bowl.
Games Around The New Year
Duke’s Mayo Bowl- December 30th- North Carolina State vs. Purdue
Tony The Tiger Sun Bowl- December 30th- Florida State vs. Oregon State
TaxSlayer Gator Bowl- December 30th- Arkansas vs. Pittsburgh
Arizona Bowl- December 30th- Fresno State vs. Toledo
Music City Bowl- December 31st- Florida vs. Wisconsin
ReliaQuest Bowl- January 2nd- Notre Dame vs. Texas A&M- Unfortunately our prediction that “Notre Dame won’t lose another game until they play USC” didn’t exactly pan out. This one features teams coming off bad losses. The Fighting Irish lost to Marshall while the Aggies dropped a home game to Appalachian State.
Citrus Bowl- January 2nd- Tennessee vs. Michigan State
You’ll find Marshall in our next slate of games as we continue with our 2022 Week Two Bowl Projections.
Post-Christmas Day Games
Quick Lane Bowl- December 26th– Central Michigan vs. Maryland
Camellia Bowl- December 27th– Marshall vs. Miami (Ohio)
First Responder Bowl- December 27th- California vs. Iowa State
Birmingham Bowl- December 27th- LSU vs. Rutgers- The Tigers take the place of Missouri who drop out this week.
Guaranteed Rate Bowl- December 27th- Iowa vs. Texas Tech- We gave a lot of thought to putting Kansas in here who are off to a surprising 2-0 start. The Red Raiders face a Hawkeyes club who’ve struggled in their first two games.
Military Bowl- December 28th- East Carolina vs. Virginia
Liberty Bowl- December 28th- Kansas State vs. South Carolina
Holiday Bowl- December 28th- UCLA vs. Wake Forest- Organizers hope this one gets played after being canceled the last two years due to COVID. Sam Hartman looked good in his return to action. The Bruins have another tune-up next week before starting conference action.
Texas Bowl- December 28th- Mississippi State vs. TCU
Pinstripe Bowl- December 29th- Boston College vs. Illinois
Cheez-It Bowl- December 29th- Oklahoma State vs. Miami (Florida)– This is a meeting of two schools who just miss the upper bowls is one of the best of the whole season.
Alamo Bowl- December 29th- Texas vs. Oregon
As we go through the final sets of games in our 2022 Week Two Bowl Projections you’ll find a couple of more of the teams we talked about earlier as the “Group Of Five” school. Again with all the bowl tie-ins to the Power Five schools it’s hard to find a bigger game for them.
Games Around Christmas
Myrtle Beach Bowl- December 19th- Coastal Carolina vs. Memphis
Idaho Potato Bowl- December 20th- Air Force vs. Northern Illinois
Boca Raton Bowl- December 20th- Central Florida vs. Old Dominion
New Orleans Bowl- December 21st- Louisiana vs. UAB
Armed Forces Bowl- December 22nd- Houston vs. TCU
Independence Bowl- December 23rd- Army vs. Tulane
Gasparilla Bowl- December 23rd- Auburn vs. Louisville
Hawai’i Bowl- December 24th- BYU vs. San Diego State
As we wrap up our 2022 Week Two Bowl Projections let’s look at the early season games. This includes a whopping seven games on December 17th alone.
First Weekend Games
Bahamas Bowl- December 16th- Florida Atlantic vs. Western Michigan
Cure Bowl- December 16th- Liberty vs. Western Kentucky
Fenway Bowl- December 17th- SMU vs. Syracuse- Organizers hope the third time is the charm as the Boston game’s been canceled twice due to COVID.
Celebration Bowl- December 17th- Jackson State vs. North Carolina Central
New Mexico Bowl- December 17th- Texas San-Antonio vs. Utah State
Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl– December 17th- Boise State vs. Washington State– Last year’s game was certainly memorable, though not necessarily by what happened on the field.
Lending Tree Bowl- December 17th- Appalachian State vs. Kent State
Las Vegas Bowl- December 17th- Ole Miss vs. Washington- The “Lane Train” pulling into Las Vegas certainly makes for an interesting game.
Frisco Bowl- December 17th- Colorado State vs. UTEP
Thanks for checking out our 2022 Week Two Bowl Projections here at Last Word On College Football. We’ll be here next week and every week until the entire schedule is announced in December.
