New Year's Six projections - week 10

The first CFP rankings of the year have just been released, and let's make some projections for the New Year's Six bowls.

The Peach and Fiesta Bowls are the semi-finals this season, which means that there is only room for one at-large team, who will play the G5 representative in the Cotton Bowl.  This also means that none of the champs who aren't in the CFP will be getting displaced from their regular landing spot.

Obviously, the final set of bowls will look nothing like this, as this weekend's slate featuring 4 8-0 teams playing each other will likely lead to some major shifts in the rankings.

Coming up with the top four teams is difficult at the moment.  The current top 5 contains teams that will play each other soon.

The top four I will project at this point are Ohio State, Clemson, Oregon, and the LSU/Alabama winner.  This is the same I projected with the AP rankings last week.  It's a drastic change from the CFP rankings, but the rankings have a top four where two of the teams are guaranteed a loss before the season is out.

Peach:  LSU/Alabama winner (#2/3) vs. Clemson (#5)
Fiesta:  Ohio State (#1) vs. Oregon (#7)

The only bowl not needing a replacement for their champ is the Sugar for the Big 12.

Sugar:  LSU/Alabama loser (#2/3) vs. Oklahoma (#9, Big 12 projected champ)
Rose:  Penn State (#4, Big Ten replacement) vs. Utah (#8, Pac-12 replacement)
Orange:  Wake Forest (#19, ACC replacement) vs. Georgia (#6, highest ranked non-champ/non-replacement out of SEC/Big Ten/ND)
Cotton:  Cincinnati (#20, G5) vs. Florida (#10, highest ranked team not already placed)

These projections are very volatile, and I don't expect a lot of them to hold up as teams knock each other down the rankings.