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Even though both teams won on Saturday, Penn State passed Big Ten East Division rival Ohio State in the latest Associated Press poll.
What the College Football Playoff committee is thinking so far is anybody’s guess.
The Nittany Lions rose to No. 6 in the rankings, up 4 spots, after defeating Auburn. OSU, which struggled to top winless Tulsa, fell a spot to No. 10 in the poll, released Sunday.
So now the Buckeyes are rated as the third-best team in the B1G through three weeks. But we still think, for all of OSU’s flaws so far, that they are the most talented team in the B1G and the most likely team to win the league and threaten to make the College Football Playoff. We reserve the right to change our minds if the defense doesn’t get fixed soon.
There were no upsets among the top dozen contenders for the CFP so we’re still projecting that the B1G misses out on the Playoff. We also put Rutgers on our bowl-bound list, not so much for the Scarlet Knights beating Delaware on Saturday but more because, after Northwestern lost to Duke, we can’t really justify including the Wildcats in our projections anymore.
So here are the latest B1G bowl projections:
Rose Bowl: Ohio State vs. Oregon
Fiesta Bowl: Penn State vs. Notre Dame
Citrus Bowl: Iowa vs. Ole Miss
Outback Bowl: Wisconsin vs. Auburn
Las Vegas Bowl: Michigan vs. Arizona State
Music City Bowl: Michigan State vs. Missouri
Pinstripe Bowl: Minnesota vs. Louisville
Guaranteed Rate Bowl: Indiana vs. TCU
Redbox Bowl: Maryland vs. Stanford
Quick Lane Bowl: Rutgers vs. Western Michigan
Longtime newspaper veteran Jim Tomlin is a writer and editor for saturdaytradition.com and saturdaydownsouth.com.