Week 7 bowl projections: Make room for Notre Dame in College Football Playoff

Bill Bender

Week 7 bowl projections: Make room for Notre Dame in College Football Playoff image

The 2018 college football schedule is nearly halfway complete, meaning we're one week closer to the 40-game 2018 bowl season. Sporting News, of course, has projections for all of those bowls. 

This week, Notre Dame crashes the College Football Playoff projections. We have the Irish taking on Alabama in the Capital One Orange Bowl, and the matchup between Clemson and Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl Classic stays the same. Georgia is out for now, but the Bulldogs would be ranked higher than the Irish if the first Playoff rankings were released this week. We understand that. Texas and Florida also crashed our New Year's Day Six picks.

MORE: One-loss teams in the mix

Here are our projections for every bowl game, with a familiar national championship game.

Week 7 College football bowl projections

DateBowlProjected teams
Dec. 15Gildan New Mexico BowlBoise State vs. Southern Miss
Dec. 15AutoNation Cure BowlAppalachian State vs. USF
Dec. 15Las Vegas BowlSan Diego State vs. Utah
Dec. 15Raycom Media Camellia BowlGeorgia Southern vs. New Mexico*
Dec. 15New Orleans BowlArkansas State vs. Louisiana Tech
Dec. 18Cheribundi Tart Boca Raton BowlOhio vs. FIU
Dec. 19Frisco BowlWestern Michigan vs. Memphis
Dec. 20Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla BowlFAU vs. Cincinnati
Dec. 21Bahamas BowlMarshall vs. Toledo
Dec. 21Potato BowlNorthern Illinois vs. Utah State
Dec. 22Birmingham BowlHouston vs. Tennessee
Dec. 22Lockheed Martin Armed Forces BowlArizona State* vs. Temple
Dec. 22Dollar General BowlCoastal Carolina vs. Buffalo
Dec. 22Hawai'i BowlHawaii vs. North Texas
Dec. 26First Responder BowlMiddle Tennessee St. vs. Northwestern
Dec. 26Quick Lane BowlPitt vs. Indiana
Dec. 26Cheez-It BowlIowa State vs. Stanford
Dec. 27Walk-On's Independence Bowl Wake Forest vs. Vanderbilt
Dec. 27New Era Pinstripe BowlDuke vs. Purdue
Dec. 27Academy Sports + Outdoors Texas BowlTexas Tech vs. Mississippi State
Dec. 28Franklin American Mortgage Music City BowlBoston College vs. Missouri
Dec. 28Camping World BowlOklahoma State vs. Syracuse
Dec. 28Arizona BowlTroy vs. Fresno State
Dec. 28Valero Alamo BowlTCU vs. Washington State
Dec. 29Chick-Fil-A Peach BowlGeorgia vs. Miami (Fla.)
Dec. 29Belk BowlN.C. State vs. South Carolina
Dec. 31Military Bowl Army vs. Tulane
Dec. 31Hyundai Sun BowlVirginia Tech vs. Colorado
Dec. 31San Francisco BowlMichigan State vs. USC
Dec. 31AutoZone Liberty BowlOklahoma vs. Texas A&M
Dec. 31Holiday BowlMaryland vs. Oregon
Dec. 31TaxSlayer Gator BowlIowa vs. Auburn
Jan. 1Outback BowlWisconsin vs. Kentucky
Jan. 1Citrus BowlMichigan vs. LSU
Jan. 1PlayStation Fiesta BowlUCF vs. West Virginia
Jan. 1Rose Bowl GamePenn State vs. Washington
Jan. 1AllState Sugar BowlTexas vs. Florida

MORE: SN's Week 7 Power Rankings

College Football Playoff predictions 

Dec. 29Capital One Orange BowlNotre Dame vs. Alabama
Dec. 29Goodyear Cotton Bowl ClassicClemson vs. Ohio State
Jan. 7College Football Playoff championshipAlabama vs. Ohio State

Bill Bender

Bill Bender graduated from Ohio University in 2002 and started at The Sporting News as a fantasy football writer in 2007. He has covered the College Football Playoff, NBA Finals and World Series for SN. Bender enjoys story-telling, awesomely-bad 80s movies and coaching youth sports.