{"id":41669,"date":"2021-12-05T00:21:12","date_gmt":"2021-12-05T05:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=41669"},"modified":"2025-09-16T23:07:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T03:07:24","slug":"lwos-final-2021-bowl-projections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2021\/12\/05\/lwos-final-2021-bowl-projections\/","title":{"rendered":"LWOS Final 2021 Bowl Projections"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Our Last Picks Before The Announcement<\/h3>\n<p>The only thing that seems certain in college football is nothing&#8217;s for sure. We headed into &#8220;Championship Weekend&#8221; with a dominant and seemingly unbeatable top team. That didn&#8217;t quite work out. In fact several of the favorites lost. As a result our playoff and selection committee games have changed once again. In the other big news of the week on Thursday the NCAA added one more bowl game so that no six win team would stay home this year. If you <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2021\/11\/29\/lwos-week-13-bowl-projections\/\" target=\"_self\">go back to last week\u00a0 <\/a>we had Ball State and Hawaii as the two teams out. We&#8217;ll have more on that as we go along but let&#8217;s get right to our LWOS Final 2021 Bowl Projections.<\/p>\n<h3>College Football Playoff<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Orange Bowl- December 31st- (1) Alabama vs. (4) Cincinnati- <\/strong>Everything seemed to set up perfectly for Georgia. They went into Saturday as the favorite over Alabama. However if we&#8217;ve learned anything over the years, it&#8217;s to never underestimate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/coaches\/nick-saban-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nick Saban<\/a>. Not only did the Crimson Tide win the SEC title again they did it in dominating fashion 41-24. Unfortunately it looks like they&#8217;ll be missing a key player as it&#8217;s believed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/john-metchie-1.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John Metchie<\/a> tore his ACL in the SEC title game.<\/p>\n<p>We have to give a huge shout out to what\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/coaches\/luke-fickell-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luke Fickell&#8217;s<\/a> club accomplished this year. Led by quarterback <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/desmond-ridder-1.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Desmond Ridder<\/a> the Bearcats knocked off a good Houston club 35-20 to become the first Group Of Five school to make the playoff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cotton Bowl- December 31st- (2) Michigan vs. (3) Georgia- <\/strong>Following their 42-3 win over Iowa in the Big 10 Championship you could make the case for the Wolverines as number one. However when you knock off number one as Alabama did then you take the top spot. The Bulldogs drop from one to the three seed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>College Football National Championship- (1) Alabama vs. (2) Michigan- <\/strong>These two schools have met five times before with Alabama holding a 3-2 lead. However none of the previous matchups are as big as this one.<\/p>\n<h3>Selection Committee Games<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Peach Bowl- December 30th- Notre Dame vs. Pittsburgh- <\/strong>We&#8217;re sliding the Fighting Irish, who were fifth in our final rankings, to Atlanta. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/kenny-pickett-1.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kenny Pickett<\/a> and the Panthers knocked off Wake Forest and are the ACC Champs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fiesta Bowl- January 1st- Michigan State vs. Oklahoma State- <\/strong>The Cowboys literally came as close as possible to winning only to be stopped at the goal line. They drop out of the playoff and head to Arizona.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rose Bowl- January 1st- Ohio State vs. Utah-<\/strong> As expected the Utes <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2021\/12\/04\/41685-utes-stamp-their-trip-to-the-rose-bowl\/\" target=\"_self\">had no trouble with Oregon <\/a>and are headed to Pasadena for the first time ever. This is the only one of our top games that remained the same from last week.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sugar Bowl- January 1st- Baylor vs. Ole Miss- <\/strong>With Alabama winning on Saturday we&#8217;re moving the Rebels from the Peach to the Sugar Bowl. The Bears are still heading to New Orleans, but now as the Big 12 Champs.<\/p>\n<p>Now that we&#8217;ve gone through the playoff and selection committee games as we continue with our LWOS 2021 final bowl projections let&#8217;s look at the New Year&#8217;s games.<\/p>\n<h3>New Year&#8217;s Day And After Games<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Citrus Bowl- January 1st- Iowa vs. Kentucky<\/strong>&#8211; As a result of the Hawkeyes losing in the Big 10 Championship we get the match up every bowl projector <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2021\/12\/03\/kentuckys-possible-bowl-destinations\/\" target=\"_self\">tries for every year.<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/coaches\/mark-stoops-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mark Stoops<\/a> and the 9-3 Wildcats playing against his alma mater. While bowl organizers also looked at Arkansas and Texas A&amp;M here this was too good to pass up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Outback Bowl- January 1st- Texas A&amp;M vs. Wisconsin<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Texas Bowl- January 4th- Auburn vs. Texas Tech<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>New Year\u2019s Eve Games<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Barstool Sports Arizona Bowl- December 31st- Boise State vs. Kent State<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>TaxSlayer Gator Bowl- December 31st- Arkansas vs. Wake Forest-\u00a0<\/strong>We had been rolling with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/sam-hartman-1.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sam Hartman<\/a> and the Demon Deacons all year as a NY6 team. However their loss to Pittsburgh sends them to Jacksonville.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tony The Tiger Sun Bowl- December 31st- Miami vs. Washington State<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Continuing our LWOS Final 2021 Bowl Projections we now head to the games between Christmas and the New Year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Duke\u2019s Mayo Bowl- December 30th- North Carolina vs. Tennessee<\/strong><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Music City Bowl- December 30th-\u00a0 Minnesota vs. Mississippi State<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Las Vegas Bowl- December 30th- Arizona State vs. Penn State<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Alamo Bowl- December 29th- Oklahoma vs. Oregon<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Cheez-It Bowl- December 29th- Clemson vs. Iowa State<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Fenway Bowl- December 29th- Houston vs. Virginia<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Pinstripe Bowl- December 29th-\u00a0 Louisville vs. Maryland<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Continuing our LWOS Week 13 Bowl Projections we now head to the games between Christmas and the New Year.<\/p>\n<h3>Bowl Games After Christmas<\/h3>\n<article id=\"post-40238\" class=\"post-40238 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-bowl-games category-featured tag-2021-aac-bowl-projections tag-2021-acc-bowl-projectons tag-2021-big-12-bowl-projections tag-2021-college-football-playoff-projections tag-2021-pac-12-bowl-projections tag-2021-sec-bowl-projections tag-2021-selection-committee-games-projections tag-cfb tag-fbs tag-kentucky-wildcats-bowl-projections tag-ncaa\">\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p><strong>Birmingham<\/strong> <strong>Bowl<\/strong>\u2013<strong> December 28th- Tulsa vs. South Carolina<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>First Responder Bowl- December 28th- Miami (Ohio) vs. San Diego State<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Guaranteed Rate Bowl- December 28th-\u00a0 Kansas State vs. Purdue<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Holiday Bowl- December 28th- North Carolina State vs. UCLA <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Liberty Bowl- December 28th- Missouri vs. West Virginia<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Military Bowl- December 27th- East Carolina * vs. Virginia Tech- <\/strong>The Pirates finished 7-5 and became the first team to officially accept a bowl bid.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Quick Lane Bowl- December 27th- Northern Illinois vs. Old Dominion- <\/strong>With no Big 10 team available we\u2019re sending the Monarchs to Detroit.<\/p>\n<article id=\"post-40238\" class=\"post-40238 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-bowl-games category-featured tag-2021-aac-bowl-projections tag-2021-acc-bowl-projectons tag-2021-big-12-bowl-projections tag-2021-college-football-playoff-projections tag-2021-pac-12-bowl-projections tag-2021-sec-bowl-projections tag-2021-selection-committee-games-projections tag-cfb tag-fbs tag-kentucky-wildcats-bowl-projections tag-ncaa\">\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<h3>Christmas Holiday Games<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Camellia Bowl- December 25th- Central Michigan vs. Georgia State<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Hawaii Bowl- December 24th-\u00a0 Hawaii* vs. Memphis *- <\/strong>We mentioned this earlier the NCAA created another bowl game so every six win team could play in the post-season.\u00a0 As a result the 6-7 Rainbows not only make a bowl but get to stay at home. They host the Tigers who already accepted a bid.<\/p>\n<p>We are in the home stretch with our LWOS\u00a0 Final 2021 Bowl Projections time for a look at the pre-Christmas set of games.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Union Home Mortgage Bowl- December 22nd-\u00a0 Central Florida vs. Florida- <\/strong>This in-state battle is too good to pass up.<br \/>\n<strong>Armed Forces Bowl- December 22nd- Army vs. SMU<\/strong><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Frisco Bowl- December 21st- Air Force vs. Marshall<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Idaho Potato Bowl- December 21st- Nevada vs. Western Michigan<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Myrtle Beach Bowl- December 20th- Coastal Carolina vs. North Texas<\/strong><\/p>\n<article id=\"post-41459\" class=\"post-41459 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-bowl-games category-featured tag-2021-aac-bowl-projections tag-2021-acc-bowl-projectons tag-2021-big-10-bowl-projections tag-2021-big-12-bowl-projections tag-2021-bowl-projections tag-2021-pac-12-bowl-projections tag-2021-sec-bowl-projections tag-2021-selection-committee-games-projections tag-cfb tag-fbs tag-ncaa\">\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<h3>First Weekend Matchups<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Bahamas Bowl- December 17th- Middle Tennessee * vs. Toledo *-<\/strong>\u00a0As we reported last week these two schools have already accepted a bid to this game. This was done in advance due to the travel involved.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cure Bowl- December 17th- Appalachian State vs. LSU<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Boca Raton Bowl- December 18th- Boston College vs. UAB<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Celebration Bowl- December 18th- Jackson State vs. South Carolina State<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Independence Bowl- December 18th- BYU vs. Texas San-Antonio-\u00a0<\/strong>The Conference USA champions head to Shreveport in what could be one of the best games of the year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lending Tree Bowl- December 18th- Liberty* vs. Eastern Michigan-<\/strong> According to published reports the Flames have accepted a bid to the game in Mobile, Alabama.<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Jimmy Kimmel Los Angeles Bowl- December 18th- Oregon State vs. Utah State- <\/strong>The Aggies blew out San Diego State 46-13 to win the Mountain West title. As a result they head to L.A. for a date with the Beavers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>New Mexico Bowl- December 18th- Fresno State vs. UTEP<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>New Orleans Bowl- December 18th- Louisiana vs. Western Kentucky- <\/strong>Word came down <strong>Billy<\/strong> <strong>Napier<\/strong> won&#8217;t coach the Ragin&#8217; Cajuns in their bowl game. They&#8217;ll face a Hilltopper squad who nearly came back from a 42-13 deficit in the Conference USA title game.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scooby-Doo Mystery Bowl- Ball State vs. Wyoming- <\/strong>At this point the only thing we know about this game is Frisco, Texas is the location. Since everything else is a mystery why not name it in honor of America&#8217;s favorite crime-solving canine.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for checking out our <strong>LWOS Final 2021 Bowl Projections<\/strong>. In addition a special thank you for everyone who&#8217;s followed along this year, we really appreciate it.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-1\">\n<div id=\"rc-widget-6e0e4e\" data-rc-widget=\"\" data-widget-host=\"habitat\" data-endpoint=\"\/\/trends.revcontent.com\" data-widget-id=\"175604\">\n<div>\n<div id=\"rc_cont_175604\" class=\"sc-jrsJWt bHAMtT rc-wc rc-uid-175604 rc-g-dl layout_1\">\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"sc-jSFjdj jcTaHb rc-widget-header\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div id=\"IL_INSEARCH\" class=\"IL_BASE insearch1\">\n<div class=\"IL_BASE\">\n<div class=\"IL_BASE\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our Last Picks Before The Announcement The only thing that seems certain in college football is nothing&#8217;s for sure. We headed into &#8220;Championship Weekend&#8221; with a dominant and seemingly unbeatable top team. That didn&#8217;t quite work out. In fact several of the favorites lost. As a result our playoff and selection committee games have changed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":877,"featured_media":40324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7361],"tags":[7987,35628,6992,5476,35627,300,184,140,126,10101,5475],"class_list":["post-41669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-bowl-games","tag-2021-selection-committee-games-projections","tag-aac-bowl-projections","tag-acc-bowl-projections","tag-big-12-bowl-projections","tag-big-ten-bowl-projections","tag-bowl-projections","tag-cfb","tag-fbs","tag-ncaa","tag-pac-12-bowl-projections","tag-sec-bowl-projections"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/877"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79953,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41669\/revisions\/79953"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}