Final NY6 Predictions

Now that the regular season and championship weekend are in the books, we can finally make the final predictions for the New Year's Six.  Let's see how accurate this ends up being in the next 12-15 hours.

Any rankings mentioned below are obviously the rankings coming into championship weekend.

Starting with the top criteria for the playoff committee, which they have consistently indicated as number of losses.  The only teams available for that are #1 Georgia, #2 Michigan, #3 Alabama, #4 Cincinnati, and #6 Notre Dame.

Since Notre Dame did not play this weekend and also lost to Cincinnati, I don't see there being any way for the Irish to jump the Bearcats.  I also don't see any reason for Cincy to jump Michigan as both of them won.

The real bug in the system is Alabama beating Georgia and sending both of them to the CFP.  (For the record, I don't mind two SEC teams in the playoff as much as I just don't want to see Alabama in the mix at all.)  We also have to figure that the committee is not going to set up an immediate rematch.

In that case, we're either going to see Alabama at #1 with Georgia at #2 or 3, or Georgia at #4 with Alabama at #2 or 3.

Really, the seeding doesn't matter at this point, because I think we're going to see:
Alabama vs. Cincinnati
Michigan vs. Georgia

And it's just a matter of if the committee will let Alabama or Michigan pick their destination.

With the top four out of the way, we can now project the rest of the New Year's Six.

Rose Bowl (Pac-12 champ vs. Big Ten replacement):
Utah vs. Ohio State

Sugar Bowl (Big 12 champ vs. SEC replacement)
Baylor vs. Ole Miss

Peach Bowl (ACC champ vs. at-large)
Pitt vs. Notre Dame

Fiesta Bowl (at-large vs. at-large)
Oklahoma State vs. Michigan State

Now, I'm willing to hedge my bets and say that those last four teams could be put in any configuration, as the committee has been known to tweak the expected matchups.

To the best of my knowledge, the rule for a G5 team in the New Year's Six is just that the highest ranked champion is guaranteed a spot in one of the six bowls.  Since Cincy will be in a semi-final, that satisfies that requirement, and so the next highest ranked G5 champ (Louisiana) will not be called up as a replacement.