Heading into clash with Michigan State, here’s where Ohio State is projected to go come bowl season

From a playoff favorite to off the board entirely. That’s the breaks when it comes to a college football season. Less than a week ago, the Rose Bowl semifinal was being projected as a very real landing spot for the Ohio State Buckeyes. Now, that’s not even in the conversation.

Once again, we’ve rounded up five outlets, and looked at where they think the Buckeyes will be heading come postseason time. After the implosion in Iowa City, predicting how Ohio State carries on for the rest of the season is a little tricky. Some outlets think the Scarlet and Gray will recover nicely, while others saw the Iowa loss as just the tip of the iceberg.

Let’s take a look at those bowl projections.

Last week, Kirk, like most of the entire field, had Ohio State in the playoffs. But after seeing the Buckeyes fall apart to the Hawkeyes, there’s a concern that the free fall is still happening.

He has OSU missing the New Year’s Six bowl slate entirely, and heading to the Holiday Bowl. Additionally, Kirk has Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl, Penn State in the Citrus Bowl, Michigan in the Outback Bowl, and Wisconsin in the playoff. (That means, he has Sparty and the Wolverines taking down the Buckeyes in the coming weeks.)

We’ll find out on Saturday how well Ohio State has shaken off the Iowa loss.

Erick Smith of USA Today has a college football classic matchup in the Fiesta Bowl: Ohio State vs. Southern California. Many Rose Bowls featured this pairing, but a West Coast theme stays with a Fiesta Bowl pairing.

Smith also has Wisconsin (Orange Bowl) and Penn State (Peach Bowl) joining the Buckeyes in New Year’s Six bowl games.

Like Smith, ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura has a USC-OSU matchup, but his is in the Cotton Bowl.

His counterpart David M. Hale spiced up his prediction this week: he has the Buckeyes in the Peach Bowl going up against UCF. The Orange Bowl was the projected landing spot for quite some time with Hale, but with the recent loss, his projections have shifted a tad. Hale, like Bonagura, has Wisconsin in the Orange Bowl in this week’s edition of the bowl game guessing game.

At Sports Illustrated, Eric Single has, like Hale of ESPN, a Peach Bowl meetup between Buckeyes and Knights.

Like the South Florida predictions a few weeks back, I don’t see how the Buckeyes come out “winners” in a game like this. If they don’t blow them out by 30, they’re seen as not being nearly as good as they’re supposed to be. Especially after the 31-point loss in Iowa City, an upset of the Buckeyes in a bowl game by a non-Power 5 member would be especially bad for the Big Ten.

Then again, Utah rocked Alabama in a Sugar Bowl in 2009, and the Crimson Tide turned out okay.

Jerry Palm was a believer in the Buckeyes’ playoff chances before it was mainstream. However, even he’s jumped off the OSU-to-Pasadena, Calif., train and has them in the Citrus Bowl.

In his predictions, only Wisconsin made it to a New Year’s Six game—and he has the Badgers facing ‘Bama in the Sugar Bowl.