Preseason B1G bowl projections: Another mad scramble begins
All we can say is, let’s play 12.
No, we don’t mean that the late Ernie Banks forgot to stop counting after he famously said “Let’s play two.” We just want there to be a full 12-game season, which means that coaches, students and fans all stay healthy and the COVID-19 pandemic numbers get contained. The coronavirus nearly wrecked college football — especially in the Big Ten’s part of the world — last year.
The result gave us such oddities as Ohio State playing only 5 regular-season games on the way to the conference championship (and eventually a spot in the College Football Playoff national title game). The Buckeyes played 2 bowl games; the rest of the B1G teams got to play just 3 combined because several postseason games were canceled thanks to COVID-19 concerns.
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Memorably, Northwestern and Indiana played in January bowl games. Granted, the Wildcats have played in January bowls 5 times since 2009 but only 8 in their history. For the Hoosiers, the feat is even rarer; IU has been in a bowl after the calendar flipped to a new year in consecutive seasons, but only 4 times in program history.
What will 2021 bring for the B1G? More upsets, more coaches experiencing the rumor mill grind, more Midwestern teams trying to stay hot during the cold of winter.
But at the top, we feel that it will be more of the same, meaning Ohio State ruling the conference and in the CFP’s 4-team Playoff extravaganza again.
We project Ohio State to face Alabama, the team that denied the Buckeyes a national championship in 2020, in the first round of this season’s Playoff at the Cotton Bowl in Arlington, Texas. That stadium was the site, of course, of last season’s Rose Bowl between Bama and Notre Dame. Yep, 2020 was strange — try explaining any of that last sentence to somebody who fell asleep late in 2019 and just woke up.
But the Rose Bowl returns to Pasadena this year and, because it’s not a Playoff semifinal this time, it reverts back to its classic B1G vs. Pac-12 matchup. That’s where we see Penn State heading as the second B1G team in a New Year’s Day 6 bowl to cap the 2021 season.
So now we give you our preseason B1G bowl projections:
