Notre Dame Bowl Projections Are Narrowed Down To Two

Notre Dame will likely play in one of two bowl games to end the 2023 season, but the opponent is still a question

Notre Dame finished the regular season with a 9-3 record, which means the Irish will go bowling to end the season. What bowl game they play in, and who they play in that bowl game, has yet to be determined. Based on the most recent bowl projections the bowl game has been narrowed down to two, the ReliaQuest Bowl and the Pop Tarts Bowl.

Looking at the latest bowl projections following the win over Stanford, six different services project Notre Dame to the ReliaQuest Bowl, which was previously known as the Outback Bowl. Four of those five services have Notre Dame projected to play LSU, another projects the Irish to play Ole Miss, and the sixth has the Irish slated to play Wisconsin. The last projection for Wisconsin is the most outlandish.

Fox Sports, Athlon Sports, 247Sports and Mark Schlabach at ESPN all project Notre Dame to play the Tigers, Sporting News projects the Irish to play Wisconsin, and CollegeFootballNews.com projects them to play Ole Miss.

The Citrus Bowl gets first dibs over the ReliaQuest Bowl for the best available SEC team. Should Georgia win the SEC title they would earn a playoff spot, while Alabama would likely play in one of the New Year's Six games. That means the Citrus Bowl gets the first choice of SEC teams. The current projections have Ole Miss slated to the Citrus Bowl, which would then put LSU on track to play in the ReliaQuest Bowl.

My understanding is the Citrus Bowl isn't locked into Ole Miss simply because they are ranked higher than LSU, beat LSU or are higher in the SEC standings than SEC. The counter argument is that LSU played in the Citrus Bowl a season ago. It would make sense that the Citrus Bowl wouldn't want the same SEC team a second year, but that's exactly what the bowl did after the 2016 and 2017 seasons, when it took LSU both seasons to play Louisville (2016) and Notre Dame (2017).

The ReliaQuest Bowl tie ins have the SEC against either a Big Ten or ACC school. Notre Dame is able to be selected instead of either due to its relationship with the ACC. 

Of course, the biggest storyline of that bowl matchup would be Notre Dame facing former head coach Brian Kelly. Notre Dame and LSU have played twice in bowl games in the last decade, with Notre Dame winning the Music City Bowl (31-28) back in 2014, and then beating the Tigers 21-17 in the Citrus Bowl following the 2017 season.

If Notre Dame doesn't play in the ReliaQuest Bowl it seems as though the Pop Tarts Bowl is the next most likely option. Jerry Palm of CBS Sports and Kyle Bonagura of ESPN both have Notre Dame slated for a rematch against Oklahoma State in that game. The Cowboys take on Texas this weekend in the Big 12 title game, and the Irish squared off against Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl following the 2021 season.

We'll find out the official game and opponent on Sunday.

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