Missouri football bowl projections. Where national outlets have MU pinned for postseason
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With the regular season winding down, where do the prognosticators have Missouri traveling for the postseason?
Missouri football got its year back on the tracks Saturday, beating Mississippi State 49-27 in its home finale on Faurot Field behind a 300-yard rushing day from star running back Ahmad Hardy.
The Tigers (7-3, 3-3 SEC) became bowl eligible after their sixth of the season. Mizzou will head on the road for the final two weeks of the season, starting with a trip Saturday, Nov. 22, to face CFP contender Oklahoma (8-2, 4-2) in Norman, Oklahoma.
The game at the Palace on the Prairie is scheduled to kick off at 11 a.m. and will air on ABC.
With two games left to play in the regular season, here is where various national media outlets have Missouri projected to play in the postseason in their updated bowl projections:
ESPN: Music City Bowl vs. Iowa; Duke’s Mayo Bowl vs. Duke
Run it back?
ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura, in his updated projections, has tabbed the Tigers for a Music City Bowl appearance on Dec. 30 in Nashville, Tennessee, for a matchup against … Iowa. Get a sense of déja vu?
Mizzou played against the Hawkeyes in the Music City Bowl last season, beating head coach Kirk Ferentz’s team to cap a 10-win season. It seems extremely unlikely, but probably not impossible, that MU would head to the same site for a game against the same opponent in back-to-back seasons.
Fellow ESPN writer Mark Schlabach projects Mizzou to go to Charlotte, North Carolina, for a Jan. 2 game against Duke in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. The Blue Devils are 5-5 on the year under head coach Manny Diaz.
Missouri has never appeared in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, where the winning coach gets mayonnaise poured on their head at the end of the game.
The Athletic: Texas Bowl vs Iowa State
Scott Dochterman of The Athletic’s projections see Mizzou heading to face Iowa State in the Texas Bowl on Dec. 27 in Houston. The Cyclones are 6-4 this year with a 3-4 mark in Big 12 play.
Missouri has played Iowa State 104 times in its history, but not since the Tigers left the Big 12 after the 2011 season.
The Tigers’ last trip to the Texas Bowl was a 2017 loss to Texas.
USA Today: Music City Bowl vs. Illinois
Erick Smith of USA Today has Mizzou projected to renew the Braggin’ Rights rivalry with Illinois in the Music City Bowl on Dec. 30 in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Illini are 7-3 with a 4-3 record in Big Ten play. Missouri, as mentioned above, played in the Music City Bowl last season. Mizzou hasn’t played Illinois since 2010, but this annual basketball rivalry is set to get a football rebirth soon.
Earlier this year, Mizzou and Illinois altered their upcoming series to drop games in 2026 and 2032. That means the first currently scheduled game in the revived series is for 2027 in Columbia.
CBS Sports: ReliaQuest Bowl vs. Penn State
Spicy!
Brad Crawford of CBS Sports projected that Missouri will take on Penn State on Dec. 31 in the ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa, Florida.
There are a couple of storylines at play here. Mizzou quarterback Beau Pribula, provided he is healthy by then, transferred to the Tigers from the Nittany Lions this past offseason.
Mizzou head coach Eli Drinkwitz also has been listed among the names listed as potential candidates to fill the head coaching vacancy in Happy Valley, which opened after James Franklin (now the head coach at Virginia Tech) was fired earlier this season.
Penn State is 4-6 this season and would need to beat Rutgers and Nebraska to close the regular season to guarantee bowl eligibility.
The bowl is now played at Raymond-James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and also where MU lost to Wake Forest in the 2022 Gasparilla Bowl.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Where Missouri football landed in new national bowl game projections
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