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The 2020 Big Ten season became a lot clearer on Saturday.
With Ohio State holding on to top Indiana and Northwestern upending Wisconsin, we now see a pretty logical path for OSU and NU to meet in the B1G Championship Game on Dec. 19 and for both of those teams to go to New Year’s Day 6 bowls. We see no reason to stop projecting the Buckeyes into the College Football Playoff.
Indiana and Wisconsin, coming off those losses, could still play their way into the major bowl picture. The complication is that they play each other on Dec. 5, and both would still have a crossover game on the week of the B1G title tilt.
Assuming there will be some standard for bowl admission, even in a year when the NCAA has waived the usual 6-win threshold for bowl eligibility, it’s hard to see the conference sending more than 8 or 9 teams to the postseason. For now we say 8, keeping in mind that the B1G lost a spot when the Quick Lane Bowl was canceled.
Here are the latest B1G bowl projections:
Rose Bowl: Ohio State vs. Clemson
Fiesta Bowl: Northwestern vs. Oregon
Citrus Bowl: Indiana vs. Auburn
Outback Bowl: Wisconsin vs. Missouri
Duke’s Mayo Bowl: Iowa vs. N.C. State
Music City Bowl: Purdue vs. Kentucky
Pinstripe Bowl: Maryland vs. Boston College
Guaranteed Rate Bowl: Minnesota vs. Kansas State
Longtime newspaper veteran Jim Tomlin is a writer and editor for saturdaytradition.com and saturdaydownsouth.com.