Perhaps the Gator Bowl is back in play for the Big East.
Pitt's win over Notre Dame dropped the Irish to 6-4, and they still have to play UConn and Stanford. The Huskies can do the conference a big favor by winning in South Bend this week, which would mean Notre Dame would be no better than 7-5. And Stanford will be heavily favored at home over the Irish in the finale, meaning Notre Dame could finish 6-6 and be ineligible to go to Jacksonville over a Big East team.
That would solve a lot of headaches for the league. For now, though, I'm still operating on the assumption that the Gator Bowl takes Notre Dame.
I'm also moving Rutgers to St. Pete, since the Scarlet Knights may finish with nine or 10 wins and will not want to go back to Toronto. South Florida would sell about five tickets to the International Bowl, but the league may not care since it's the last year of the agreement with that bowl.
Here are my latest bowl projections, with all of that in mind:
Sugar Bowl: Cincinnati vs. BCS
Meineke Car Care Bowl: Pitt vs. ACC
Papajohns.com Bowl: West Virginia vs. SEC
International Bowl: South Florida vs. MAC
St. Petersburg Bowl: Rutgers vs. C-USA
Here is the complete bowl schedule, and here are complete projections from colleagues Mark Schlabach and Bruce Feldman.
Pitt's win over Notre Dame dropped the Irish to 6-4, and they still have to play UConn and Stanford. The Huskies can do the conference a big favor by winning in South Bend this week, which would mean Notre Dame would be no better than 7-5. And Stanford will be heavily favored at home over the Irish in the finale, meaning Notre Dame could finish 6-6 and be ineligible to go to Jacksonville over a Big East team.
That would solve a lot of headaches for the league. For now, though, I'm still operating on the assumption that the Gator Bowl takes Notre Dame.
I'm also moving Rutgers to St. Pete, since the Scarlet Knights may finish with nine or 10 wins and will not want to go back to Toronto. South Florida would sell about five tickets to the International Bowl, but the league may not care since it's the last year of the agreement with that bowl.
Here are my latest bowl projections, with all of that in mind:
Sugar Bowl: Cincinnati vs. BCS
Meineke Car Care Bowl: Pitt vs. ACC
Papajohns.com Bowl: West Virginia vs. SEC
International Bowl: South Florida vs. MAC
St. Petersburg Bowl: Rutgers vs. C-USA
Here is the complete bowl schedule, and here are complete projections from colleagues Mark Schlabach and Bruce Feldman.
Brian Bennett | email
College Football- ESPN.com Big Ten blogger
- Joined ESPN.com in 2008
- Wrote for The Courier-Journal
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Andrea Adelson
Adelson joined ESPN.com in 2010 after spending time as a college football columnist at The Orlando Sentinel. She has covered college football since her days as a University of Florida student, and lives in Orlando, Fla.
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