Where Are You Going?

by cocknfire on Nov 12, 2008 2:15 AM EST in Football

Real life and the SEC Power Poll kept me from posting anything too in-depth for today, but it's neither too early nor too late to take a look at where SEC teams are likely to end up in the bowl pecking order.

Bowl	SEC Selection	Comments
BCS Title Game	Alabama/Florida winner	Unless one of them loses between now and Atlanta, this is a lock; the likely opponent is the Big XII Championship Game winner.
Sugar Bowl	Alabama/Florida loser	This, of course, assumes that the winner of the SEC title game goes to Miami for the national championship. A two-loss Florida or Alabama with one of those losses in the SEC CG would still go here; the Sugar won't take Southern Cal or any other at-large team before an SEC squad.
Capital One Bowl	Georgia	The Capital One almost always chooses the best remaining team out of the SEC East. A BCS-less Florida could shake things up.
Cotton Bowl	LSU	The Cotton chooses the best remaining team out of the SEC West. That will probably be LSU, though things could get tricky if Alabama gets left out of the BCS entirely.
Outback Bowl	South Carolina	The Outback has had a couple of good experiences with South Carolina, and there's really no competition for the Gamecocks here. If Michigan State is the Big Ten team chosen, that could make this even more intriguing: HC Mark Dantonio is a South Carolina alum.
Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl	Kentucky	SEC East wins out here. A 6-6 Auburn could be a tempting choice over a 7-5 Kentucky, but a lack of enthusiasm among the Tiger faithful combined with the need for a new contestant (Auburn played here last year) probably still gives the Wildcats the nod.
Music City Bowl	Vanderbilt/Ole Miss (if eligible)	The next two really go together. The SEC and the bowls will make the choice. Vanderbilt fans might sell out Music City, but that would defeat the tourism purposes of having a bowl. And it probably won't be hard to get bowl-starved fans to travel from Oxford. Of course, if one or both aren't eligible for a bowl -- problem solved.
Liberty Bowl	Vanderbilt/Ole Miss (if eligible)	See above.
Independence Bowl	Auburn/Arkansas (if eligible)	Let's suspend disbelief for a moment and pretend one or both of these teams makes a bowl. The Independence gets one and, if both somehow make it, the other goes to the Pizzernet Bowl.
Papajohns.com Bowl	Auburn/Arkansas (if eligible)	Again, not likely. But if...
No Bowl	Mississippi State	Not making it.
No Bowl	Tennessee	Now mathematically impossible.

So am I wrong? And are you happy with your team's likely bowl destination?

0 recs | Comment 3 comments |

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Comments

You've got it right

The SEC bids are about as set as they possibly could be at this point in the season. The only monkey wrench would be if Florida loses to FSU or South Carolina and then beats Alabama.

As for the opponents, I’d expect to see Michigan State in the CapOne, the Iowa/Minnesota winner in the Outback, and the Big 12 South trio member that gets left out of the BCS in the Cotton (if they lose to Oklahoma, likely Texas Tech).

by Bama Hawkeye on Nov 12, 2008 11:19 AM EST 0 recs

Agreed

The only way Florida doesn’t make a BCS game is if it loses to either Carolina or FSU, or it heads into Atlanta and gets bombed by Alabama. The bowl scenarios get very interesting should the SEC not get two BCS bids, although if Florida were to slip up, Georgia is not in a bad position to still get a BCS at-large bid. Granted, it would take a monumental slip-up for Florida that I personally don’t see happening.

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by AuditDawg on Nov 12, 2008 1:00 PM EST up 0 recs

As a Bama fan..

I don’t think it would be possible for me not to be happy with either the MNC game or the Sugar Bowl. Wasn’t expecting either at the beginning of the season.

by jsholt969 on Nov 13, 2008 3:48 AM EST 0 recs