Okay, I’ve been a lot busier than anticipated, but I will scratch out a bowl predictions post right quick. I’m despairing because this all going to be a lot clearer after this weekend, especially with regard to the Oregon State situation.

• I finally bit the bullet and projected Oregon State to win the Pac-10, which causes Ohio State to miss the BCS and the Big Ten to actually fufill its bowl obligations.
• I put Oklahoma there before the BCS came out. There’s really no way to predict what the voters will do based on the results this weekend, though.
• I am stubbornly sticking to my guns regarding a Tech-Vandy Music City matchup.
• I apparently forgot to put someone in the Emerald Bowl. Just go with Hawaii, I guess. Oh, and ignore that Fresno State-Rutgers is a rematch. (I may correct these issues before I upload next week’s.)
• Somewhat Non-Obvious Matchup of the Week: None. I don’t see any non-high-profile game that intrigues me at all on this list.

Anyway, I will try to upload on Saturday night. My usual policy is to at least do the initial predictions before the bowls will have a chance to announce matchups. (A lot of bowls involving non-BCS conferences will probably announce their bids this week.) If a bowl extends a bid and I’m wrong, I will change the prediction of the other bowls involved with that conference. I don’t remember if I count any correct predictions that were changed during the week as “correct”, but we’ll see.

Once again, on the stage of history, this week’s bowl predictions. Commentary follows.

Oh, you can read them here.

• Tech versus Vandy may be optimistic hope more than anything else, but let me just throw this out here:
  

  Dear Music City Bowl,

  If you select the Georgia Institute of Technology to your post-season collegiate football contest, I will purchase a ticket for myself and several of my colleagues.

  Sincerely,
  ASimPerson

• Oh, I also suppose there’s a chance a Tech could end up just about anywhere in the ACC’s bowl hierarchy except for the Peach. I break it down like this. Wins against Miami and Georgia probably propel Tech all the way to the Gator. Win against Miami but a loss to Georgia puts Tech purely at the mercy of the bowl committees. I could see Tech anywhere from the Champs to the Car Care in that scenario, with a slight chance of having to go out west or to DC. 0-2 the rest of the way likely means the football team will need to start packing their bags for San Francisco. A loss to Miami but a win over UGA will probably just cause my brain to explode.
• Alabama and Texas Tech control their own destines. The 1-loss teams that have an inside track of are probably Texas and Florida. Oregon State has games with Arizona and Oregon remaining to settle the matter of the Pac-10.
• There’s now a glut of potential bowl eligible teams. I’ve listed the teams that are or might go 6-6 that didn’t get at-large bids at the bottom. The Big East will probably end up with 2 extra teams, which the Pac-10, Big 12, and SEC will all come up way short. The Sun Belt looks like a bunch of geniuses at the moment due to a pre-season deal that they would provide backup teams to three bowls, as this also gives their 6-6 teams priority over “true” at-large 6-6 teams.
• Somewhat Non-Obvious Matchup of the Week: Iowa-Mississippi. Not really a game I want to watch, but notable because who would’ve expected either of these teams to appear in the Outback Bowl back in August? Of course, both benefit from very strong teams at the top of their conferences that will get them 2 BCS bids.

So I based my bowl predictions on the idea that Oregon State will, actually, you know, lose again. But here’s OSU’s remaining schedule:

• 11/15: vs. California
• 11/22: @Arizona
• 11/29: vs. Oregon

It’s probable they’ll lose to one of those teams. Though they beat USC, they subsequently lost to Utah the next week and their new found 4-game winning streak has been against the 4 worst teams in the Pac-10 (UCLA, Arizona State, Washington, and Washington State). But what if they don’t lose again? Well, they would earn the Pac-10’s auto-bid to the Rose Bowl. So let’s re-evaluate the BCS selection process, using the same set of assumptions I use in my normal bowl predictions:

1. Set the auto-bids. Alabama and Texas Tech go to the title game, VPI goes to the Orange, Penn State and Oregon State go to the Rose.
2. The Sugar gets first pick of the remaining auto-bid teams (the Big East winner, Utah, Texas, and Florida). The Sugar being where it is, they’ll be more than happy with another SEC team and take the Sugar.
3. The Fiesta gets the next pick to replace Texas Tech. The Fiesta also has the first at-large pick, so they effectively get to setup whatever matchup they want. There are still 3 auto-bids left, so of those 3 let’s say they take Texas. The Fiesta probably doesn’t want Utah or the Big East champ, so they leave them to the Sugar and Orange to sort out while they take stock of the eligible at-large teams. The juciest prizes are almost certainly a 2-loss Ohio State and a 1-loss Southern Cal. All things being equal, I’m guessing they take USC.
4. The Sugar and Orange then have to take the Big East champ and Utah.

So who does OSU’s win over Southern Cal effect the most? Monetarily, probably the other OSU, who will lose some $13 million or so by going to the Capital One Bowl instead of the Fiesta. So, for those of you stuck in Columbus or the other reaches of Ohio, I suggest you become big Cal, Arizona, and Oregon fans in a hurry.

Here ya go. Let’s do this.

• Got officially back onto the Florida bandwagon, they should make a BCS bowl over Georgia even if they lose to Alabama in the SECCG.
• The Big 12 and SEC will be 2 teams short of a full slate. I don’t see this changing unless some really unlikely stuff occurs.
• As for the ACC, who the hell knows? They will have at least 9 bowl eligible teams, though.
• Yes, Virginia, you do see both Buffalo and Florida International on there, though FIU is pretty much a stand-in for “any eligible Sun Belt team”. Buffalo will probably be at least 7-5, though.
• Just a reminder, even though I do have USC going to the Rose if Oregon State wins out they will have the tiebreaker over USC. Which makes things interesting for the Fiesta, as they’d have a choice (most likely) of Texas, Ohio State, and USC and could only pick two.
• Somewhat Non-Obvious Matchup of the Week: Oregon State-Oklahoma State, Holiday Bowl. Not exactly non-obvious, but Oregon State is strangely buyount this season and Oklahoma State should have no problems scoring points. The Holiday’s repuation as a good bowl should remain intact. Imagine if USC falls to here (though they probably won’t)?

Here ya go. Let’s hit the high points.

• Yes, I know I have Georgia in the BCS. Right now, I am not sure what will happen to Florida if they lose in the last weekend of the season in the SEC title game and Gerogia wins outs. Of course, since UGA went to the Sugar last year they may want Florida if they can get them anyway.
• I don’t see an undefeated Alabama or an undefeated Texas Tech getting jumped by Penn State. With TTU’s remaining schedule I think eventually the pollsters will move TTU up, or at the least the gap will close between TTU and Penn State, and with their commanding lead in the computers that will be enough to keep Texas Tech at #2.
• Fun fact: if Penn State loses to Michigan State (by far the toughest team on their remaining schedule) then Michigan State will go to the Rose Bowl over Ohio State. OSU will still go to a BCS game if they win out, but still.
• I, like most everyone else, have no idea what to make of the ACC. Last week I had Miami in the EagleBank Bowl and now they’re in the Gator. They could be in Boise next week. Trying to predict this conference sucks, but there are two teams that do control their path to the ACC title game: Maryland and Virginia Tech. Both, however, have plenty of conference games remaining.
• Georgia Tech does not control its own destiny, though, since both of our/their losses are to ACC opponents in their own division. The one nice thing for Tech (as you can see on the right) is that they only have 2 conference games remaining, so they’ll get into the clubhouse early, as it were.
• I actually have an extra team this week, Akron! We’ll see if that holds up, though. Of the extra MAC teams, I really have no idea which would be most preferred since they’re all pretty far away from most of bowl games. (I’m surprised more cold-weather cities with domes don’t have bowl games. Detroit has the Motor City Bowl and Toronto has the International Bowl and that’s it. I would think Indianapolis, with a new stadium and central location, would look into a game. Sure beats playing outdoors in Washington, D.C.)
• If this holds up, I feel sorry for the Independence Bowl. Also, Troy, why you gotta lose to UL-Monroe? Though (somewhat ironically) they probably improve their bowl position this year with a loss (as opposed to last year, where their last game loss cost them a bowl appearance).
• Somewhat Non-Obvious Matchup of the Week: Gator Bowl, Miami vs. Notre Dame. Maybe if we close our eyes and wish really hard, we can pretend it’s the 1988 version of these two teams. Miami suffered its only loss of the year to the undefeated Irish, 31-30. Okay, yeah, maybe this is pretty obvious but I don’t really see any other interesting non-BCS matchups this week. And Notre Dame will be vastly overpicked here, but they’re Notre Dame and they’ll draw better than Conneciticut, probably.