After a relatively quiet week seven, the college football media is projecting four different ACC teams plus Notre Dame and four different Big 12 teams.
Here are your week five projections for the 26th Russell Athletic Bowl.
Jerry Palm (CBSSports.com): Notre Dame vs. Oklahoma State
Jason Kirk (SBNation): Pittsburgh vs. West Virginia
Jake Trotter (ESPN Big 12 Blog): Oklahoma
David Hale (ESPN ACC Blog): Miami
Mark Schlabach (ESPN): Florida State vs. Oklahoma State
Brett McMurphy (ESPN): Notre Dame vs. Oklahoma
Bill Bender (Sporting News): Florida State vs. Oklahoma State
College Sports Madness: Notre Dame vs. Oklahoma State
Bryan Fischer (Bleacher Report): Duke vs. Texas Tech
Zac Ellis (Sports Illustrated): Duke vs. West Virginia
Unlike last week when projections remained somewhat static, we see four new teams enter the media’s guesses. Pittsburgh, Miami, Texas Tech and Duke are the Newcomers this week.
Pitt has made just one appearance in the City Beautiful and that came in 2001 when they defeated NC State in the first edition of the game played in Orlando.
Miami would be making its fifth appearance in the Russell Athletic Bowl, which would tie them for the most by any team. The Hurricanes most recently appeared in 2013.
Texas Tech has one appearance in Orlando, a victory over Clemson in 2002. Kliff Kingsbury, now the Red Raiders’ head coach, was the MVP of that game.
Duke is the only team new to the projections that doesn’t have a previous appearance.