Bowl developments, including some premature bitterness from a Spartan.

By Sunday evening, the Hoosiers should know the bowl destination. In the meantime:

• The Outback Bowl, which is third in the selection order (behind the Rose/BCS and Capital One), already has invited Wisconsin. Clearly, this tells us that the Outback coveted Wisconsin over all others and that the Capital One covets two teams (Illinois and Michigan, presumably) over Wisconsin. Wisconsin played in Orlando last year, so I can see why the Capital One took a pass. I'm a bit more surprised that the Outback, which hasn't hosted Michigan in five years and has never invited Illinois, was so quick to pass on the others.
• Dave Dye of the Detroit News is an angry man, even though IU has not yet actually been selected ahead of Michigan State. He makes some good points: identical record, head to head win by MSU, IU's poor home attendance, etc. I really don't care. If, for once, IU's football program is an interesting, compelling story, then I won't lose a minute of sleep over passing MSU in the hierarchy. And that's if we do. I still think the Insight will take MSU. As a final note, I can't tell if Dave has tongue-in-cheek when he suggests that IU hasn't been to a bowl game since Lee Corso was the coach. Presumably he knows IU went to six bowl games under Bill Mallory, but if so, his delivery was a bit too deadpan.

The bowl outlook.

The college football season is nearly over, so the bowl picture is becoming a bit more clear, and a week from now the Hoosiers should know where they will be making their first bowl appearance since 1993. I have discussed this in other posts, but here it is in a nutshell:

The Big Ten. Ohio State, of course, has secured the Big Ten's automatic BCS bid. Ohio State is ranked third in the most recent BCS standings, so it is not yet determined whether OSU will play in the Rose Bowl or the BCS Championship game. Illinois, at 9-3, has the required number of wins for BCS eligibility but is currently ranked #15, one spot short of the top 14, which would make Illinois BCS eligible. Wisconsin, Penn State, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, and Purdue all have seven wins. Iowa and Northwestern are conditionally bowl-eligible at 6-6 but don't matter to us. The Big Ten has seven bowl tie-ins and eight seven win teams. All indications are that unless Illinois gets a BCS bid, it will be MSU, IU, and Purdue fighting it out for the Insight and Motor City bowls, with the loser forced to the open market. Current conventional wisdom has Purdue as the odd team out. I'm not going to take that for granted. Purdue, like IU, has many fans close to Detroit and unlike IU, has a history of traveling reasonably well to bowl games. I think it's possible, even probable, that IU is more attractive than Purdue, but it's at least worth considering what bids might be available.

The hope for teams 2-8 in the Big Ten is that two things will happen: 1) Illinois will move into the top 14 and 2) Ohio State will move into the top 2. Number one is the most important. If number one doesn't happen, number two doesn't matter. If both happen, it's probably good for the Hoosiers and the other bowl eligible Big Ten programs. The Rose Bowl is believed to prefer to preserve the Big Ten-Pac 10 matchup whenever possible, and Illinois, which hasn't played in the Rose Bowl since after the 1983 season, would be attractive.

The national picture:

ACC: eight bids. Eight eligible, four eliminated. If the ACC gets only one BCS bid, then the ACC will fill all of its bids. [EDIT: If BC beats Virginia Tech in the ACC title game, the 10-3 Hokies, with their large fan base and the fresh memory of last spring's tregedy, might be a compelling BCS candidate. The ACC's #8 bowl tie in is the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise. Blue turf, baby!]

Big East: four or five bids. Five eligible, and Louisville still has a chance. And keep in mind that one of the tie-ins is the Gator Bowl, which can select a Big XII school or a Big East school. No BE team other than WVU, the conference champ, ranks in the top 14, so consider the Big East filled out.

Big XII: eight or nine bids. Eight eligible, four eliminated. It seems likely that either Missouri or Kansas will earn a BCS at large bid. At the very least, it seems unlikely that the Big XII will be able to fill its slot in the Texas Bowl in Houston, and possibly not its bid to the Independence Bowl in lovely Shreveport, Louisiana (please God, no).

Pac-10: Six bids. Six eligible. The Vegas Bowl is now off the table, thanks to UCLA's win over Oregon. If the Pac-10 gets a second BCS bid, then the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth will be available.

SEC: Ten eligible teams. forget it.

MAC: Three bids, locked up.

C-USA: Six bids, six eligible, no BCS prospects.

WAC: The WAC has three bids and three eligible teams, but Hawaii could sneak in to the BCS. If so, and if La. Tech and Nevada lose their finales, the New Mexico Bowl (Albuquerque) could open up.

So, there it is. For what it's worth, if my quick review is correct, IU or Purdue (MSU will not get past the Motor City Bowl committee) will be the best, perhaps only, seven win team on the market. My quick guess is that Houston is the most likely destination for the Big Ten's odd team out. Here are the weekend's priorities for IU and all Big Ten teams:

• Root for Oklahoma over Missouri and/or for Pitt over West Virginia, to allow OSU to move into the title game and make Illinois more attractive to the BCS/Rose Bowl.
• Root for #5 LSU over #14 Tennessee in the SEC Championship so that Illinois can move into the top 14.
• Root for Arizona over #13 Arizona State for the same reason.
• Root for Washington against #12 Hawaii for the same reason.

More football minutiae.

It's nice to be writing about football during Thanksgiving week and beyond:

• All Big Ten honors for the Hoosiers: Kellen Lewis (second team QB by the media and coaches); James Hardy (first team WR by the media and coaches); Greg Middleton (first team DL by media and coaches); Austin Starr (first team by media, second team by coaches); Tracy Porter (first team by media, second team by coaches); John Sandberg (honorable mention by both). Josiah Sears was the IU sportsmanship honoree.
• Austin Starr is one of three finalists for the Lou Groza award, along with Thomas Weber of Arizona State and Jose Martinez of UTEP. Starr finished 19-21 on the season. Interestingly, one of Starr's two misses, a 42 yarder in the fourth quarter that would have given IU a 17 point lead, set up the 49 yard game-winner against the Boilers. That kick, which was splashed all over Sportscenter, probably enhances Starr's chances of winning the award, but never would have happened but for the earlier miss. None of this should be taken as a criticism of Starr, IU's finest kicker since Pete Stoyanovich. Starr's emergence as an automatic kicker has been quite pleasant. I'm now more confident about field goals than I was for extra points for most of the last decade.
• Even if he thinks we bloggers are a bunch of jobless losers (or at least the Nittany Line is), I'll give some grudging credit to Stewie Mandel: first, unlike many of his national media colleagues, he has read and understands the bowl eligibility rules; second, he makes me believe that Illinois really could snag a BCS at-large bid. If Illinois gets a BCS bid, IU is nearly guaranteed a warm weather bowl (unless the Champs Sports Bowl or Insight Bowl covets Purdue).
• Heh.

Bowl odds and ends.

Just a few notes on the current status of bowl bids. First, Terry Hutchens reports that the Insight and other bowls do not expect to issue bids until after the conference championship games, i.e., two weeks from now. As I said below, it's my recollection that in the past, the BCS bowls have released certain at-large teams from consideration early. Illinois is not even in the top 14 right now, so it may well be that the BCS will say "no thanks" to the Illini after next weekend, but the Insight folks don't seem to anticipate that.

Mike Pegram has a nice summary of the Big Ten bowl picture, including links to various media speculation. The Michigan media believes MSU is a lock for the Insight Bowl. The Indiana media believes the same of IU. The national media uniformly is projecting IU to the Insight. As I have noted on many occasions, most of the people doing the projections for the national publications are ignorant of even the most basic of bowl eligibility rules, so I don't place much stock in their projections. What does seem clear is that the Insight likes IU (in a general sense), and the Motor City Bowl, really, really, really covets MSU. I am holding out hope for a backroom deal between the Insight and the Motor City that will send IU to Tempe and MSU to Detroit. Absent that, I have to think MSU, a football school with a huge fan base and no bowl bids since 2003, would be very attractive to the Insight. Damn you, Penn State!