ESPN predicts final score of all 43 Bowl, College Football Playoff games
Bowl season is inherently difficult to pick. With each game, there are questions about how many players from either side are going to play and how motivated a team is. In some cases, a team won’t even have its coach for a bowl game. This can make things chaotic and fun for that matter. It also makes bowls difficult to pick, but ESPN tried to do it anyway.
ESPN college football writer Adam Rittenberg made final score predictions for the College Football Playoff, the New Year’s Six, and every other bowl game this season. These predictions are straight up and as much information as possible about rosters and teams that is currently available was put into these picks.
Here are ESPN’s bowl season picks:
The College Football Playoff
College Football Playoff Semifinals
- Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl: Georgia 38 Ohio State 28
- Vrbo Fiesta Bowl: Michigan 38 TCU 31
National Championship Game
- CFP National Championship Game presented by AT&T: Georgia 37 Michigan 24
The rest of the NY6 bowls
- Capital One Orange Bowl: Clemson 42 Tennessee 31
- Allstate Sugar Bowl: Kansas State 31 Alabama 30
- Goodyear Cotton Bowl: USC 41 Tulane 38
- Rose Bowl Game: Utah 31 Penn State 28
ESPN’s remaining bowl predictions
- Hometown Lenders Bahamas Bowl: UAB 27 Miami (OH) 20
- Duluth Trading Cure Bowl: UTSA 31 Troy 24
- Wasabi Fenway Bowl: Louisville 20 Cincinnati 16
- Cricket Celebration Bowl: Jackson State 29 North Carolina Central 21
- New Mexico Bowl: SMU 41 BYU 37
- Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl presented by Stifel: Fresno State 33 Washington State 30
- Lending Tree Bowl: Southern Miss 20 Rice 14
- SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl: Oregon State 27 Florida 24
- Frisco Bowl: Boise State 35 North Texas 27
- Myrtle Beach Bowl: Marshall 23 UConn 10
- Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: San Jose State 35 Eastern Michigan 27
- RoofClaim.com Boca Raton Bowl: Toledo 37 Liberty 24
- R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl: Western Kentucky 34 South Alabama 31
- Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl: Baylor 26 Air Force 21
- Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl: Houston 37 Louisiana 31
- Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl: Wake Forest 27 Missouri 24
- EasyPost Hawai’i Bowl: San Diego State 27 Middle Tennessee 23
- Quick Lane Bowl: Bowling Green 34 New Mexico State 21
- Camellia Bowl: Georgia Southern 38 Buffalo 30
- SERVPRO First Responder Bowl: Memphis 34 Utah State 20
- TicketSmarter Birmingham Bowl: ECU 42 Coastal Carolina 31
- Guaranteed Rate Bowl: Oklahoma State 23 Wisconsin 17
- Military Bowl presented by Peraton: Duke 36 UCF 33
- AutoZone Liberty Bowl: Arkansas 45 Kansas 37
- San Diego County Credit Union Holiday Bowl: Oregon 47 North Carolina 37
- TaxAct Texas Bowl: Ole Miss 34 Texas Tech 29
- Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl: Minnesota 26 Syracuse 17
- Cheez-It Bowl: Florida State 44 Oklahoma 37
- Valero Alamo Bowl: Texas 38 Washington 35
- Duke’s Mayo Bowl: NC State 27 Maryland 21
- Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl: UCLA 34 Pitt 30
- TaxSlayer Gator Bowl: South Carolina 27 Notre Dame 25
- Barstool Sports Arizona Bowl: Ohio 20 Wyoming 17
- TransPerfect Music City Bowl: Kentucky 16 Iowa 10
- ReliaQuest Bowl: Illinois 26 Mississippi State 24
- Cheez-It Citrus Bowl: LSU 31 Purdue 27
ESPN is predicting the favorites will win the College Football Playoff semi-final games. That means Ohio State and Michigan will meet in the national championship game. There, once again, ESPN is taking the favorite. So, Georgia will repeat as back-to-back national champions.
Elsewhere in the New Year’s Six, Tennessee will be missing a lot of the offensive talent that it relied on this season, costing the Volunteers the Orange Bowl against Clemson. ESPN is also questioning Alabama’s motivation in the Sugar Bowl against Kansas State. USC should take care of business in a close game against Tulane. Meanwhile, in the Rose Bowl, Utah should be able to pull away late.
Other games worth checking out include the Cure Bowl, where two Group of Five conference champions are clashing in Troy and UTSA. The Fenway Bowl, meanwhile, will be a renewal of the Keg of Nails rivalry between Louisville and Cincinnati, with head coach Scott Satterfield flipping sides right before the bowl.
The Holiday Bowl between Oregon and North Carolina has the potential to be an incredibly exciting game that showcases offense. Then, there’s the Music City Bowl, which looks like it will be a defensive struggle between Kentucky and Iowa.
On top of all that, there are several great helmet matchups in the Cheez-It Bowl, Alamo Bowl, and Gator Bowl.