Bowl Projections with games results (projected) 12-3-11

ponyscott · Post by **ponyscott** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 6:48 pm

Bill Connelly picks the Bowl matchups with projections from this weekend and appears reasonable IMHO. He has Hawaii (losing to BYU) and UCLA (losing to Oregon) with both to finish 6-7, and with USC and Miami ineligible for bowl bids, that means there will be 71 teams eligible for 70 bowl slots. He picks Tulsa to go to the Hawaii Bowl again....doubt that, but Nevada is picked to be the WAC representative. He picks Purdue vs SMU here in Dallas. Even Rice beat Purdue this year, so can we project a win too?....hmmmmm

By Bill Connelly - NCAA Football Contributor

http://www.sbnation.com/ncaa-football/2 ... u-week-14t

We project not only the winners of this Saturday's conference title games, but also every college football bowl game including the six BCS matchups. LSU-Alabama seem destined for a rematch, but there's much BCS madness to be decided.

Follow @sbnation on Twitter, and Like SBNation.com on Facebook.

Nov 28, 2011 - Championship Week is upon us! Let's hop right to the bowl projections. As always, the results below are based on this week's Momentum Rankings.
New Bids

In accepting a bid to the Poinsettia Bowl, Louisiana Tech joins BYU, UL-Lafayette and Arkansas State in securing their bids.
Key Projections

Here are some key projections for this coming weekend's games:

West Virginia beats South Florida (by 0.1)
Cincinnati beats UConn
Kansas State beats Iowa State
Boise State beats New Mexico
Oklahoma State beats Oklahoma (by 0.7)
ACC Championship: Virginia Tech beats Clemson
Big Ten Championship: Wisconsin beats Michigan State
Conference USA Championship: Houston beats Southern Miss
MAC Championship: Northern Illinois beats Ohio
Pac-12 Championship: Oregon beats UCLA
SEC Championship: LSU beats Georgia
The Big East Bid

The Big East title scenario is as follows:

-- If UConn beats Cincinnati, Louisville is Big East champion.
-- If Cincinnati beats UConn and USF beats West Virginia, Cincinnati is Big East champion.
-- If Cincinnati beats UConn and West Virginia beats USF, West Virginia is (probably) Big East champion. At this point, BCS ranking is the tie-breaker, and WVU is currently the only Big East team ranked in the BCS Top 25.

In the above scenario, West Virginia takes the title, but WVU-USF is a complete and total tossup. Cincy is projected to comfortably beat UConn, but that projection does not take into account the fact that, even with his good performance last weekend, Munchie Legaux's Cincy offense is not at the same level as the Cincy offense led by injured quarterback Zach Collaros.
Filling In The BCS

Barring an unexpected result this Saturday, it is pretty easy to see how the BCS bowls will take shape at this point:

1. LSU and Alabama go to the BCS championship.

2. Wisconsin/Michigan State (Rose), Oregon (Rose), Oklahoma State (Fiesta) and Virginia Tech (ACC) assume their automatic bids, while Houston and the Big East champion (whoever it is) take two of the four remaining spots. Stanford, currently 11-1 and fourth in the BCS, automatically gets one of those two spots.

3. That leaves one remaining bid for the following pool of teams: 11-1 Boise State (currently seventh in the BCS rankings), 10-2 Kansas State (currently 11th) and possibly either 10-2 Michigan (currently 16th) or a 9-3 Oklahoma team. You must be ranked in the BCS Top 14 to qualify; Michigan is 16th, but they should leap both Georgia (if they lose to LSU) and the Michigan State/Wisconsin loser to get to 14th. Meanwhile, Oklahoma is currently 10th, and it is difficult to determine how far they will fall if they lose to Oklahoma State. (Oklahoma State obviously joins this pool if they lose to Oklahoma and fall to 11-2 and around sixth to eighth in the BCS standings.)

With the projections taking shape above, I think Michigan gets to 14th and gets the 10th bowl slot.

4. The Sugar Bowl gets the first selection from the Houston/WVU/Stanford/Michigan pool (since they lost their automatic bid to the BCS championship) and picks the team with the biggest, most-likely-to-travel fanbase: Michigan.

5. The Fiesta Bowl is up next and takes the westernmost team: Stanford.

6. The Sugar Bowl then has to choose between West Virginia and Houston. Houston is almost next door, but WVU has a much larger fanbase than the commuter school. I'm going with Houston below, but it isn't a given.

7. The Orange Bowl takes whoever is left; in this case, that is West Virginia.
One Extra Team

It appears Hawaii (losing to BYU) and UCLA (losing to Oregon) are both projected to finish 6-7, and with USC and Miami ineligible for bowl bids, that means there will be 71 teams eligible for 70 bowl slots. There is no way we end up with 69 at this point, but this cuts it awfully close. Only one bowl eligible team will go without a bid; most likely that will be either Toledo, Air Force, Wyoming, Western Michigan, Western Kentucky or Ball State. (As it stands, 6-6 Marshall is likely safe, as they will get one of the slots allotted to Conference USA.) In the below projections, Ball State drew the short straw and missed out.
Fun In The Big 12

The scenario I discussed last week still exists. There are three available Big 12 slots for four Big 12 teams -- 7-5 Missouri, 7-5 Texas, 6-6 Texas A&M and 6-6 Iowa State. The Holiday chooses first (assuming 9-3 Baylor goes to the Insight Bowl ... and let's be honest: there's always a chance Texas jumps up and steals that spot ... and they will absolutely take that spot if Texas beats Baylor this weekend); if head-to-head results matter, then Missouri takes the bid, as they went 3-0 versus the other teams on the list. But if it doesn't, then one of the better-traveling Texas schools (probably Texas) might take that spot, with the other Texas school getting the Texas Bowl. That leaves the Pinstripe Bowl to choose between Iowa State and probably one of the two departing Big 12 schools, Missouri or Texas A&M. I still think there's a very good possibility that the Pinstripe gets a subtle nudge to go with Iowa State (just like the Insight Bowl was allegedly nudged to take Missouri over departing Nebraska). In the example below, Mizzou goes to San Diego, but you could very easily flip the Tigers and Aggies.

To the bowls!
Date Bowl Team Team
17-Dec Gildan New Mexico Air Force (7-5) Western Kentucky (7-5)
17-Dec Famous Idaho Potato Bowl Toledo (8-4) Utah State (7-5)
17-Dec R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl Western Michigan (7-5) UL-Lafayette (8-4)
20-Dec Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl Pittsburgh (6-6) Florida International (8-4)
21-Dec SDCCU Poinsettia Bowl San Diego State (8-4) Louisiana Tech (8-4)
22-Dec Maaco Bowl Las Vegas Boise State (11-1) Arizona State (6-6)
24-Dec Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl Nevada (7-5) Tulsa (8-4)
26-Dec Advocare Independence Bowl TCU (10-2) N.C. State (7-5)
27-Dec Little Caesars Pizza Bowl Northwestern (6-6) Ohio (9-4)
27-Dec Belk Bowl Virginia (8-4) Cincinnati (9-3)
28-Dec Military Bowl Wake Forest (6-6) Temple (8-4)
28-Dec Bridgeport Education Holiday Bowl Missouri (7-5) California (7-5)
29-Dec Champs Sports Bowl Florida State (8-4) Notre Dame (8-4)
29-Dec Valero Alamo Bowl Oklahoma (9-3) Utah (7-5)
30-Dec Bell Helicopters Armed Forces Bowl BYU (9-3) Marshall (6-6)
30-Dec New Era Pinstripe Bowl Iowa State (6-6) Rutgers (8-4)
30-Dec Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl North Carolina (7-5) Vanderbilt (6-6)
30-Dec Insight Bowl Baylor (9-3) Penn State (9-3)
31-Dec Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas Texas (7-5) Iowa (7-5)
31-Dec Hyundai Sun Bowl Georgia Tech (8-4) Washington (7-5)
31-Dec AutoZone Liberty Bowl Southern Miss (10-3) Texas A&M (6-6)
31-Dec Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl Illinois (6-6) Wyoming (7-5)
31-Dec Chick-fil-A Bowl Auburn (7-5) Clemson (9-4)
2-Jan TicketCity Bowl Purdue (6-6) SMU (7-5)
2-Jan Outback Bowl Michigan State (10-3) South Carolina (10-2)
2-Jan Capital One Bowl Nebraska (9-3) Georgia (10-3)
2-Jan Progressive Gator Bowl Ohio State (6-6) Florida (6-6)
6-Jan AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic Kansas State (10-2) Arkansas (10-2)
7-Jan BBVA Compass Bowl Louisville (7-5) Mississippi State (6-6)
8-Jan GoDaddy.com Bowl Northern Illinois (10-3) Arkansas State (10-2)
2-Jan Rose Bowl Wisconsin (11-2) Oregon (11-2)
2-Jan Tostitos Fiesta Bowl Oklahoma State (11-1) Stanford (11-1)
3-Jan Allstate Sugar Bowl Michigan (10-2) Houston (13-0)
4-Jan Discover Orange Bowl Virginia Tech (12-1) West Virginia (9-3)
9-Jan Allstate BCS National Championship Game LSU (13-0) Alabama (11-1)

The PonyGrad · Post by **The PonyGrad** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 6:55 pm

I giess that makes Eastern Michigan the only bowl eligible tean not to get a slot. Given how long it has been since they have been bowl eligible,... how embarassing.

BUS · Post by **BUS** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 7:03 pm

Considering I already have tickets to the TicketCity Bowl... this is good news.
Parking ia 12A for the 11 am game. Party starts at 8 :wink:

Maybe we all pitch in together and have a bolw out tailgate!!
Thanks PS for the research.

ponyscott · Post by **ponyscott** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 8:17 pm

BUS wrote:Considering I already have tickets to the TicketCity Bowl... this is good news.
Parking ia 12A for the 11 am game. Party starts at 8
Maybe we all pitch in together and have a bowl out tailgate!!
Thanks PS for the research.

No research, just happened to see what SBNation projected and thought it may make some sense. I have AFB tics and hope to sell real high to BYU fans....

sbsmith · Post by **sbsmith** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 9:27 pm

The PonyGrad wrote:I giess that makes Eastern Michigan the only bowl eligible tean not to get a slot. Given how long it has been since they have been bowl eligible,... how embarassing.

Eastern Michigan isn't bowl eligible, they have 6 wins but 2 of them were over 1-AA teams, you can only count 1 of them towards bowl eligibility so they needed 7 wins to be bowl eligible.

SBR Pony · Post by **SBR Pony** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 9:36 pm

I say 75% chance we go to AFB

smupony94 · Post by **smupony94** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 9:38 pm

Play AFB with a side trip to Maui

SMU_Alumni11 · Post by **SMU_Alumni11** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 9:42 pm

Im hoping this will turn out. It look exciting, and a great way to go 8-5 in the cotton bowl against an AQ team. The only downside, our players might not show up because they wanted a free vacation. Hopefully they can snap out of it and prove they should of been the 9-4, 10-3 team we thought they would be.

goldenstang · Post by **goldenstang** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 9:47 pm

It will be ticketcity or Hawaii but most likely ticketcity. As crazy as it sounds they can put someone that will sell less tickets than us in the AFB like Tulsa since it is going to be almost a guaranteed sellout with byu and all the armed forces personnel in attendance. They will put us in ticketcity bowl since we would sell more tickets than Tulsa.

SMU_Alumni11 · Post by **SMU_Alumni11** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 9:49 pm

goldenstang wrote:It will be ticketcity or Hawaii but most likely ticketcity. As crazy as it sounds they can put someone that will sell less tickets than us in the AFB like Tulsa since it is going to be almost a guaranteed sellout with byu and all the armed forces personnel in attendance. They will put us in ticketcity bowl since we would sell more tickets than Tulsa.

Makes sense, KTP will be the only Tulsa fan (besides required members) in the AFB.

ponyscott · Post by **ponyscott** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 9:51 pm

smupony94 wrote:Play AFB with a side trip to Maui

Now THAT"S the ticket!

smupony94 · Post by **smupony94** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 9:52 pm

ponyscott wrote:
smupony94 wrote:Play AFB with a side trip to Maui

Now THAT"S the ticket!

Everybody wins

StallionsModelT · Post by **StallionsModelT** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 9:52 pm

I think our best chance to win is AFB against BYU.

SMU_Alumni11 · Post by **SMU_Alumni11** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 9:53 pm

StallionsModelT wrote:I think our best chance to win is AFB against BYU.

Isnt BYU > Purdue

Stallion · Post by **Stallion** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 10:00 pm

Purdue is much like SMU. They won a big surprise game (Ohio St) and but lost to Rice. Most of their wins are against awful programs. I don't see why it wouldn't be a competitive game. Here's their schedule-not too impressive

http://espn.go.com/college-football/tea ... ilermakers