Big 12 bowl games: Who's going where?
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BY CURT McKEEVER / Lincoln Journal Star
Keep in mind that one unexpected result can leave a doting bowl game representative as blush in the face as one of Tom Osborne’s blazers. But with two weeks left in the regular season, it’s becoming clearer who’s courting whom in the Big 12 Conference.
For the winner of next Friday’s Nebraska-Colorado contest, that could mean a trip to Tempe, Ariz., for the Dec. 27 Insight Bowl against an opponent from the Pac-10.
More on that later, but first here’s the setup:
Bowl outlook figuring two teams make the BCS (projected Big 12 participant)
Sugar Bowl, New Orleans, Jan. 1 (Oklahoma)
Fiesta Bowl, Tempe, Ariz., Jan. 2 (Missouri)
Cotton Bowl, Dallas, Jan. 1, (Texas) vs. SEC opponent
Holiday Bowl, San Diego, Dec. 27, (Kansas) vs. Pac-10 opponent
Gator Bowl, Jacksonville, Fla, Jan. 1, (Texas Tech) vs. ACC opponent
Alamo Bowl, San Antonio, Dec. 29, (Texas A&M) vs. Big Ten opponent
Insight Bowl, Tempe, Ariz., Dec. 27, (Nebraska-Colorado winner) vs. Big Ten opponent
Independence Bowl, Shreveport, La., Dec. 30, (Kansas State) vs. SEC opponent
Texas Bowl, Houston, Dec. 27, (Oklahoma State) vs. Conference USA opponent
The Big 12 has eight guaranteed bowl slots. However, since Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas are in the top 13 of the Bowl Championship Series rankings, the league figures on getting a second team to a BCS game. That means it will have nine spots available, which is the maximum number of teams that can qualify (there could be as few as seven).
Who’s in? Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, Texas Tech and Texas A&M.
Is anybody else guaranteed in the nine-slot deal? Yes. The Nebraska-Colorado winner.
Who else? Kansas State and Oklahoma State — if either wins one of their remaining two games. The Wildcats play host to Missouri on Saturday and then are at Fresno State next week. The Cowboys are at Baylor and Oklahoma.
The pecking order for postseason games hinges on the Big 12’s four-year agreement with the Gator and Sun Bowl, but the Gator will have the biggest impact this season.
Those two bowls are required to take a Big 12 team twice in four years. The Gator passed last year, meaning if it does so again next month it will be left with no choice but to have a Big 12 participant the next two years. That also would eliminate an option of having Notre Dame in that span.
But here’s where things get really tricky. If the Big 12 has just one team in a BCS bowl, the Gator could enact a one-time option with the Big 12 that lets it choose ahead of the Cotton Bowl. And if that happens, the Gator would swoop in to get a Texas team that’s looking at being 10-2.
However, if the Big 12 gets two BCS slots, then the Gator picks behind the Cotton and Holiday Bowls, and so it could be left having to choose between a 7-5 Texas Tech or 10-win team from the Big East Conference. The Gator Bowl has never had a five-loss participant.
“That’s the difficulty of the situation we’re in,” Gator Bowl President Rick Catlett said Thursday. “If they put two in (the BCS), it balances our decision equally between taking a Big 12 team or a Big East team.”
In that scenario, should the Gator pass on the Big 12, then the Sun Bowl would slide in behind the Alamo Bowl and pick sixth.
If the Big 12 has only one BCS participant, Catlett said the odds go up to 90 percent that the Gator would take a Big 12 team. And if it did so, then the Sun Bowl would be left out of the mix.
Figuring that Oklahoma emerges as Big 12 champion and the league gets a second BCS spot, the Sooners likely would go to the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1 since they were in the last Fiesta Bowl. The Big 12 championship loser (Missouri or Kansas) would then get a berth to the Fiesta.
From there, the Cotton Bowl would be apt to grab Texas, the Holiday would take whoever’s left between Missouri and Kansas, leaving the Gator Bowl to decide whether it wanted Texas Tech. Assuming that it did, then Texas A&M would look attractive to the San Antonio-based Alamo and the Insight would look to the Nebraska-Colorado winner (by the way, there will be an Insight rep in Boulder).
The last two Big 12-affiliated bowls — the Independence and Texas — could have both Kansas State and Oklahoma State as options, or maybe one or neither. If both teams qualified, then the Independence would go for Kansas State since it had Oklahoma State last year. Kansas State played in last year’s Texas Bowl.
Now, should the Gator Bowl pass on the Big 12, the Alamo would probably decide between Texas Tech and Texas A&M, with the other school headed to the Sun.
Then again, who can count on the regular season finishing up uneventfully?
Reach Curt McKeever 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.
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