Missouri football bowl projections. Where MU is pinned for postseason with 4 games to go
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The margin for error is no more.
Missouri football enters November needing a perfect finishing stretch to secure a spot in the College Football Playoff field. The Tigers (6-2, 2-2 SEC) lost to Alabama and Vanderbilt in October, which means the best regular-season record that the team can achieve is 10-2.
That, as it so happens, is also commonly viewed as the minimum mark needed for an SEC team to make the CFP field. The playoff committee will reveal its first set of top-25 rankings Tuesday, Nov. 4.
Mizzou’s need for perfection begins with No. 3-ranked Texas A&M on Saturday, Nov. 8, in Columbia. Both the Tigers and the Aggies were idle this past weekend.
With four 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. Nebraska; Duke’s Mayo Bowl vs. Duke
ESPN writer Mark Schlabach did not change his projected bowl site for Missouri in his updated projections from last week, but his partner in projections, Kyle Bonagura, has switched his and is sending the Tigers back to the same site as last season.
Bonagura, in his updated projections, has tabbed the Tigers for a Music City Bowl appearance on Dec. 30 in Nashville, Tennessee, for a Big Eight/12 reunion with Nebraska. The Cornhuskers are currently 6-3 with a 3-3 mark in Big Ten play.
Mizzou played in the Music City Bowl last season, beating Iowa to cap a 10-win season.
Schlabach still projects Mizzou to go to Charlotte, North Carolina, for a Jan. 2 game against Duke in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. Duke is 5-3 on the year, just beat Clemson on the road, and has a 4-1 mark in ACC play. The Blue Devils still have a shot to make the ACC title game, although the conference is currently a blender.
Missouri has never appeared in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, but did travel to Tampa for the Gasparilla Bowl in 2022, when it lost to Wake Forest.
CBS Sports: Texas Bowl vs. TCU
Brad Crawford of CBS Sports projected that Missouri will take on TCU on Dec. 27 in the Texas Bowl in Houston, which means his bowl predictions have not changed from the previous week.
The Horned Frogs are 6-2 this season, with both losses coming in Big 12 Conference play, against Kansas State and Arizona State.
Mizzou last played in the Texas Bowl in 2017, falling to Texas under then-head coach Barry Odom.
The Athletic: Duke’s Mayo Bowl vs. Duke
Scott Dochterman of The Athletic is also sending the Tigers to face Duke in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl on Jan. 2 in Charlotte.
Reminder: The winning coach in this bowl game gets mayonnaise dumped on their heads.
College football. Nothing like it.
USA Today: Liberty Bowl vs. Cincinnati
Erick Smith of USA Today has Mizzou projected to play in the Liberty Bowl on Jan. 2 in Memphis for a game against Cincinnati.
The Bearcats are 7-2 with a 5-1 mark in Big 12 play, having just lost for the first time in conference play this past Saturday to Utah.
Mizzou has never played Cincinnati in program history. The Tigers’ last visit to the Liberty Bowl was in 2018, when Mizzou lost to Oklahoma State.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Where Missouri football landed in updated national bowl projections
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