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?