Penn State sits at 8-2 on the year with meetings against Rutgers and Michigan State the only obstacles between it and a 10-win season. The Nittany Lions are very likely headed somewhere warm for a bowl game. The question currently is who that game might be against. As the season rounds into the final two weeks Penn State will get a better and better idea of who that opponent might be — and where the game might be played. Here are the latest bowl projections from five different outlets.
ESPN, Yahoo! and CBS Sports: Citrus Bowl against No. 14 Ole Miss. While the Citrus Bowl continues to be not the most exciting bowl game Penn State could go to, Ole Miss is very much still the most enjoyable opponent Penn State is eyeing up at this point of the year. Lane Kiffin is a staple in college football and his personality would make for a fun press conference alongside James Franklin. The Rebels lost to Alabama this past weekend, something that didn’t do Penn State’s New Years Six bowl chances any favors. End of the day, you can do worse than playing a bowl game in Florida against a team that had cautious optimism about being a playoff team this year. Sign me up for this one. Ole Miss faces Arkansas this weekend before hosting Mississippi State for the Egg Bowl to close out the regular season.
247 Network: Orange Bowl against No. 13 North Carolina. The Orange Bowl is the fancy option for Penn State fans looking to go to a bowl destination that is different than the last decade or so. North Carolina isn’t the most exciting opponent Penn State could face but there is something nice about a bowl game that provides both a new location (the Nittany Lions were last there following the 2005 season) and a very new opponent (PSU and UNC have met once, in 1943). Georgia Tech and NC State are still on the docket for the Tar Heels after a close win over Virginia this past weekend. Mack Brown hasn’t lost his touch just yet and it would be a fun meeting between the old guard and the new with Brown and Franklin on opposite sidelines. Penn State’s last trip to the Orange Bowl was a classic; this one probably won’t go to triple overtime.
Action Network: Cotton Bowl against UCF. UCF is coming off a win over Tulane in the meeting of Group of 5 powers and pushed UCF up to No. 17 in the rankings. Navy and South Florida are next on the schedule for this program. Simply put the Cotton Bowl is a fun time, and it’s not the worst thing in the world to play in Dallas, but if Penn State fans were looking for something new and a game against a more mainstream program, this isn’t it. UCF would be fun but it would be a variation of Penn State’s game against Memphis – a great game – but not a game anyone really cared that much about. End of the day though if Penn State is eyeing down an 11-win season doing so in Micah Parsons’ backyard wouldn’t be the worst way to go about it. Jerry World is fun and Parsons would certainly find a way to get involved.
