Pre-Bowl Games Top 25

Conference championship weekend delivered a few upsets with Kansas State, Utah and Fresno State all winning as underdogs. We’re now headed into the postseason with a playoff of the top 3 teams in my ratings and #15 TCU. I don’t have any picks for the playoff games as my model largely agrees with the lines of Michigan -8 and Georgia -6.5, my picks for other bowl games are in the next post.

Top 25

1. Georgia

2. Michigan

3. Ohio State

4. Penn State

5. Alabama

6. Texas

7. Florida State

8. LSU (+1)

9. Tennessee (-1)

10. Kansas State

11. Utah (+2)

12. Illinois (-1)

13. Clemson (+4)

14. Oregon State

15. TCU (-3)

16. Notre Dame (-1)

17. Pittsburgh (-1)

18. Oregon 

19. Washington

20. Minnesota

21. Mississippi State

22. Texas Tech

23. Houston (+2)

24. Kentucky

25. Tulane (+12)

Both Penn State and Florida State did not get a lot of hype this year despite being very solid teams. Both teams will return their quarterbacks next year along with plenty of other contributors and I expect to see them in the preseason top 10. I’ve been a big seller of Clemson all year but they were dominating in a win over North Carolina and are favored in their bowl against a depleted Tennessee team.