New Years 6 Bowls Projections (Based on AP; will be updated Tuesday after release of CFP)

Playoff:
Cotton Bowl:
#1 Alabama*
#4 Michigan*

Orange Bowl:
#2 Clemson*
#3 Notre Dame

New Years 6:
Sugar:
#5 UGA
#6 Oklahoma*

Rose:
#8 Washington State*
#9 Ohio State

Fiesta:
At Large
At Large

Peach:
At Large
At Large

At Large Pool:
#7 WVU
#10 LSU
#11 UCF (G5 Champion)
#12 Syracuse

No big shakeups this week compared to last. As a reminder, all bowl projections are based off of rankings only. These bowls no longer choose their participants, but are assigned them based on the contracts established in 2014. It breaks down like this for anyone who is unfamiliar.

Top 4 are assigned to the Playoff which rotates every year. This year the Rose and Sugar are non playoff bowls so their participants are the top NON PLAYOFF ranked Big Ten and Pac 12 teams and SEC and Big 12 teams respectively. The Peach and Fiesta bowls are picked from the remaining pools of at large teams. Which match ups will get assigned by the playoff committee is essentially just a guess at this point. The only change this week was Syracuse moved into the Top 12 and Kentucky fell out. So Syracuse takes their place in the pool of at larges. UCF is actually ranked high enough that they would be an at large team even without being the Group of Fives automatic qualifier.

Again because I see this a lot on the board, NY6 Bowls have no say on which teams they get. It is based strictly on final CFP ranking.

ETA (Clarification): The bowl selection is based solely on highest playoff rankings in the case of the auto bids to the Sugar and Rose Bowl (and the Orange Bowl when it is not a playoff bowl). Once those auto bids are taken care of the highest ranked non playoff teams remaining get at large selections until there are no more spots. Where the at large teams are sent is based on what the committee thinks will be the best match up/location for those teams.

ETA: MY personal opinion of what would happen based on these rankings. UCF would be sent to the Fiesta as they were just in the Peach Bowl last year. Hopefully they'd be matched up against Syracuse and then LSU would be paired with WVU in the Peach Bowl (I know the Fiesta Bowl would be new but I just find it unlikely they'd willingly send UCF to the same bowl two years in a row). I want whatever scenario puts us up against another bigger program. Syracuse and UCF in my opinion would be clunkers and not very interesting no matter where the game is. Plus my brother goes to WVU and I want bragging rights (neither of us were associated with our schools in 2010 and 2011 when the teams played).