After a weekend packed with marquee games between ranked opponents we’re starting to get a much better idea which contenders are truly contenders and which are pretenders. There weren’t necessarily many crazy upsets on Saturday, but there were plenty of games that shook up the bowl projections.
Among those were Ohio State‘s win over Notre Dame, Florida State‘s overtime win over Clemson and Oregon‘s shellacking of Colorado.
How did those few games, as well as dozens of others over the weekend, help shake up this week’s college football bowl projections from ESPN experts Mark Schlabach and Kyle Bonagura? Let’s take a look inside.
CFP National Championship
NRG Stadium (Houston)
Monday, Jan. 8, 7:30 p.m., ESPN and the ESPN App
Bonagura: Georgia vs. Washington
Schlabach: Georgia vs. Michigan
While Schlabach hasn’t tinkered with his national championship game pairing from a week ago despite shaking up his four playoff teams, Bonagura has. Last week, Bonagura has Georgia facing Michigan in the championship game, but he has replaced the Wolverines with the Huskies at this point. With Michael Penix Jr. and the high-flying Washington offense making believers, it’s certainly conceivable to see Washington making a playoff return after last reaching them in 2016.
CFP Semifinal at the Rose Bowl
Rose Bowl (Pasadena, California)
Monday, Jan. 1, 5 p.m., ESPN and the ESPN App
Bonagura: Michigan vs. Washington
Schlabach: Michigan vs. Washington
Both ESPN writers had Michigan vs. USC in the Rose Bowl semifinal last week, but both have removed the Trojans from their playoff list altogether after USC struggled somewhat against lowly Arizona State over the weekend. In place of the Pac-12 contender steps Washington, again looking for its first playoff berth since 2016. And while Schlabach has the Wolverines advancing to face Georgia in the national title game, Bonagura has the Huskies getting…
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