Arizona loses ground in bowl projections after Washington loss

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The Wildcats bowl prospects lost prestige after this weekend

Last weekend, seven of the eight biggest bowl projections on the internet had the Arizona Wildcats playing postseason football, with the consensus being the Sun Bowl, a fairly prestigious bowl that would place them around sixth in the Pac-12.

After the rough loss to Washington, Arizona has become noticeably closer to the fringe of bowl contention.

Here is the post-Week 7 collection of bowl projections for the Wildcats:

• 247Sports: Redbox Bowl vs. Indiana (played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA)
• CBS: N/A
• CollegeFootballNews: Cheez-It Bowl vs. Kansas State (played at Chase Field in Phoenix, AZ)
• ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura: Walk-On’s Independence Bowl vs. Louisville (played at Independence Stadium in Shreveport, LA)
• ESPN’s Mark Schlabach: Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl vs. Air Force (played at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, TX)
• SBNation/Banner Society: Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl vs. Air Force
• Sporting News: SDCCU Holiday Bowl vs. Iowa (played at SDCCU Stadium in San Diego, CA)
• Stadium’s Brett McMurphy: N/A

CBS’ Jerry Palm had Arizona missing a bowl before Week 7, and he is now joined by Stadium’s Brett McMurphy after the UW game. Those are two of the more famous names in the bowl projection game, so it’s worth noting that they have UA missing.

Elsewhere, there is almost no consensus. Both Mark Schlabach and Jason Kirk have Arizona facing Air Force in Fort Worth on Jan. 4, while Bill Bender of SportingNews still has high hopes for UA, putting them in the fairly prestigious Holiday Bowl.

Arizona needs to go 2-4 in their six remaining Pac-12 games to become bowl eligible, three of which are against ranked teams and only two of which are at home. It’s a realistic goal, but this team needs to keep growing fast to get there. That journey starts in the Coliseum against USC Saturday evening, followed by at Stanford, vs. Oregon State, a bye, at Oregon, vs Utah, and at ASU.

To me, Arizona has a bout a coin-flip’s chance to make a bowl, but I’ll stop being a pessimist and say the coin lands in the Wildcats’ favor. What do you think?

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