2022 College Football Bowl Predictions: Carolina Coastal Cruises vs. UCLA Cotton Bowl Clash
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With Week 6 of the 2022 season in the rearview mirror, it’s time to start looking ahead with some College Football Bowl predictions. If you’re like us, and bowl season is your favorite vacation, you’ll be as excited as we are about some matchups in our bowl prediction roundup. This is truly the best time of the year.
Our 2022 College Football Bowl predictions consist of a combination of our own college football top 25 and teams that don’t belong to these, selected based on their current standing in the conference. If you don’t see your favorite team here, there’s a good chance they won’t be bowling in 2022.
Let’s start with the crown jewels of the college football bowl season, the college football playoffs and the other six games of the New Year.
Currently second in our top 25 for college football, the Ohio State Buckeyes look like an unstoppable force destined for a Big Ten championship and a college football playoff spot. CJ Stroud exits Week 6 as a Heisman Trophy favorite and likely QB1 of the 2023 NFL Draft after throwing six touchdowns in a 49-20 win over Michigan State.
In our College Football Bowl predictions, the Buckeyes will face the Georgia Bulldogs, which nearly stunned Auburn with a 42-10 win over Missouri in Week 6. They rely on traditionally excellent ground play and are unlikely to have a double-threat contribution from Stetson Bennett. This fall, the Bulldogs’ defense excelled again, giving us unstoppable power against immovable objects in this conflict.
Despite suffering a scare against the Texas A&M as a better call to the game could see the Aggies shock Alabama for a second straight season, the Crimson Tide continues to seek another CFB title. They stayed away from the loss on Saturday night, narrowly winning 24-20. Winning without their star QB Bryce Young shows how this team can get the job done.
They faced a Michigan Wolverine team that featured multiple dominant defensive players and one of the best running backs in the country in Blake Colomb. In a 31-10 win over Indiana in Week 6 of college football, the defense finished with seven sacks and 10 tackles while Corum rushed for more than 100 yards. Despite falling behind Ohio State in the Big Ten, our College Football Bowl projections suggest their resumes may be strong enough to still finish in the top four.
Rose Bowl | USC & Penn State
The crown jewel of the Pac-12 and Big Ten conferences, a postcard in college football history, the Rose Bowl is the most iconic game on the bowl season schedule. In our bowl predictions, with Ohio State and Michigan heading into the college football playoffs, the second-best team in the Big Ten will pass to Parque in the form of the Penn State Nittany Lions. sadena.
More: This Week’s Week 6 Team
Penn State has a bye in Week 6, and their clash with Michigan next week will be a big factor in whether those projections continue to reflect real life. Here, they face a USC team expected to be Pac-12 champions, but without the strength to make it to the Final Four. The Trojans are undefeated after beating Washington State 30-14. A typical Pac-12 of them crashed into Colorado on a cold Friday night.
Cotton Bowl | Coastal Carolina & UCLA
The darlings of the 2020 season are back and back with a vengeance. Last season, the Carolina Coastal Carols struggled to meet the high-level expectations they set during their fairytale 2020 campaign. This season, however, they are undefeated in Week 6 of college football and are currently the No. 1 five-man team in our top 25 in college football.
Their reward for this success is a berth in the Cotton Bowl, according to our College Football Bowl projections. Coastal Carolina will face a UCLA team that is also undefeated after taking on a highly sought-after Utah team. Chip Kelly and QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who spent most of his tenure in warm-ups, helped the Bruins get their best season start since 2005.
Grayson McCall’s matchup with Thompson-Robinson could be one of the highlights of the CFB Bowl season, as both try to gain a foothold in the 2023 NFL draft class.
Sugar Bowl | Tennessee vs. Oklahoma
Ahead of the season, the battle to be the “best of the others” in the SEC looks to be one of the most fascinating elements of the season. The Tennessee Volunteers were pretty much their own team by the end of Week 6. Hendon Hooker is playing blockbuster football, he’s getting the attention of the NFL, and the defense has been suffocating behind Omari Thomas and Byron Young. The Vols continued their unbeaten run, beating LSU 40-13, dominating all stages.
Both college football teams in the Sugar Bowl predictions start Week 6 unscathed, with Oklahoma State beating a feisty Texas Tech team 41-31 to 5-0 win. The Cowboys, the highest-ranked Big 12 team in our latest top-25 ranking, narrowly lost at No. 7 in the Final Four.
Orange Bowl | Miss Ole & Clemson
Two top 10 teams as ACC champ Clemson takes fourth-placed SEC team in Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss in last New Year’s six in our 2022 College Football Bowl game predictions conflict will occur.
After a slow start to the season seemed to confirm preseason suspicions that they could be in trouble this year, Dabo Swinney’s team found themselves behind quarterback DJ Uiagalelei. It helps when your defense is as dominant as any unit we’ve seen in recent CFB history.
This defense needs to be at the top of the game to have an Ole Miss team that seems to be growing in confidence every week. The Rebels beat Vanderbilt 52-28 and remained undefeated thanks to a captivating performance from wide receiver Jonathan Mingo.
The Ole Miss pass-catcher had a victory for 247 yards and two runs, showing that a Rebel offense can burn you on land or in the air. Among Zach Evans, Ulysses Bentley IV and freshman Quinshon Judkins, they probably have one of the best RB rooms in the country.
Predictions for the remaining 2022 College Football Bowl games
Citrus Bowl | Minnesota and Mississippi
ReliaQuest Bowl | Louisiana State University and Indiana
Music City Bowl | Maryland and Kentucky
Arizona Bowl | Buffalo and Wyoming
Crocodile Bowl | North Carolina and Florida
Sun Bowl | Pittsburgh and California
Duke Mayo Bowl | Maryland vs. Auburn
Alamo Bowl | TCU and Oregon
Cheez-It Bowl | Wake Forest vs. Kansas
pinstripe bowl | Syracuse and Nebraska
Texas Bowl | Kansas State and Vanderbilt
Festive Bowl | North Carolina v Utah
Liberty Bowl | baylor and south carolina
Military Bowl | Louisville and UCF
Guarantee Bowl | Texas and Illinois
Birmingham Bowl | Cincinnati vs. Texas A&M
First Aid Bowl | UNLV and Florida
Camellia Bowl | Old Dominion and Ohio
Fast Lane Bowl | Purdue and West Michigan
Hawaiian Bowl | Notre Dame and Utah
Gasparilla Bowl | Duran and Washington
Standalone Bowl | Memphis vs. BYU
Armed Forces Bowl | Texas Tech University and Arkansas
New Orleans Bowl | South Alabama vs. Rice
Boca Raton Bowl | North Texas and Troy
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl | Eastern Michigan and the Air Force
Myrtle Beach Bowl | Appalachia and Houston
Frisco Bowl | UTSA and San Jose State University
Las Vegas Bowl | Oregon and Iowa
Borrowing a Tree Bowl | Western Kentucky vs. Marshall
Los Angeles Bowl | Boise and Washington
New Mexico Bowl | liberty and san diego
Celebration Bowl | Florida A&M and Delaware
Fenway Bowl | Duke and the Navy
Healing Bowl | Texas and Toledo
Bahamas Bowl | UAB and Ball State
Oliver Hodgkinson is a college football and NFL draft analyst for the Pro Football Network. Hodgkinson joined PFN full-time in January 2021, and since April 2019 he has contributed content as a contractor in the NFL, betting and fantasy. Hodgkinson left school at 18 to become a milkman before joining PFN full-time. He also provides college football and NFL draft content for the Saturday Blitz and British touchdowns and ninety-nine yards.
A veteran media member for multiple NFL events, Hodgkinson also has experience interviewing NFL and CFB players, as well as NFL draft prospects – designed to highlight the human side of the game of football. “
Check out his other work here, and you can find him on Twitter: @ojhodgkinson.
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