Washington picked to go to College Football Playoff in way-too-early bowl projections
Washington will represent the Pac-12 in its return to the College Football Playoff in 2023.
That’s according to The Action Network’s Brett McMurphy, who dropped a batch of early preseason bowl predictions on Monday. McMurphy has the Huskies facing Georgia in the Suger Bowl — one of the two CFP semifinals this upcoming season.
The longtime college football writer also has Oregon going to the Fiesta Bowl and facing Tulane as the only other Pac-12 team in a New Year’s 6 game. He has a total of eight Pac-12 teams among his 82 bowl participants, and made sure to note Colorado was not one of them before diving in.
Arizona is projected to the Sun Bowl against Duke, USC is picked to make the Alamo Bowl against Texas, Oregon State is slotted to the Holiday Bowl against Miami, Washington State is projected to face BYU in the Independence Bowl, Utah is picked to make the Las Vegas Bowl and face Nebraska, and UCLA is projected to play in the LA Bowl against Boise State.
The Pac-12’s CFP drought has been well-documented, and it would be something if the Huskies were the ones to end it considering the were the last team to make the playoff before the drought began.
The Huskies returned just about everyone from a team that roared to 11 wins in 2022. They’re a trendy pick to challenge for a Pac-12 title and beyond in 2023. Should UW reach double-digit wins again, it would certainly have a case to play for the national title; the schedule is a bear.
UW faces Boise State and Tulsa in non-conference home games before heading to East Lansing to face Michigan State. USC and Utah are both on the schedule from the other side of the conference, and they land in back-to-back weeks. The Huskies will play the Trojans in Los Angeles before returning home to host the reigning league champion Utes. A week later, it’s back out on the road to face Oregon State.
That could prove to be a decisive stretch in the Pac-12 title race. The week after USC hosts Washington, it travels to Eugene to battle the Ducks.
If there’s a CFP team in the league next season, they’ll be made in November.