Bowl Projections Part Deux

Time for a little analysis on the bowl situation. It is starting to look like the SEC will have no more than 8 bowl eligible teams. As I mentioned last week, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, LSU, South Carolina and UK are in. Mississippi is a lock to join. Tennessee is the only team that is definitely out, but Arkansas, Auburn and Mississippi State would all have to pull off huge upsets to get to six wins. Vandy has to get one win, against us, Tennessee (at home) or Wake Forest.
If this doesn't materialize, the SEC could have only 7 teams in the mix, after having 10 last year. This would cause a lot of hand wringing among bowl committees, and would leave either the Music City or Liberty without an SEC team. Enough about the poor SEC, lets talk about the fortunate Cats.

Quick and dirty fresher course. Assuming the SEC has two teams in BCS games, the #3 SEC team goes to the Capital One Bowl, #4 and 5 to the Cotton and Outback Bowls. The Chick-Fil-A Bowl gets the next team. The Music City and Liberty then co-exist with the #7 and #8 picks. The Independence Bowl gets #9 and Pizza Web Site Bowl the tenth and final. If there are not enough teams bowl eligible, these bowls are SOL, and it appears this year they will be.

Only eight bowl teams means that even if UK does not win another game, Shreveport and Birmingham are out of play. If the seventh and eighth spots are held by UK and either Vandy or Mississippi, we'll be back in Music City. Geography. Vandy in Nashville might fill seats, but not hotels and restaurants. Ole Miss is an hour and half from Memphis, so they'd be the clear Liberty Bowl play.

If there is no eighth team and we are the seventh team, we would have our choice between the Liberty and Music City, in theory. However, the Liberty Bowl pays out $200,000 more to the conference of each of its participants. I am not clear on whether the decision would therefore be made for us by the Southeastern Conference.

Assuming Florida, Georgia, Alabama, LSU and South Carolina have the top five spots wrapped up, our competition for a spot in the Chick-Fil-A bowl is Ole Miss. Neither team really has the inside track. At 5-4 and 3-3 in the conference, the Rebels would seem to have the easier path to seven wins, but a tougher road to eight. This week Lousiana-Monroe comes to Oxford. The Rebs finish the season at LSU, then at home in the Egg Bowl against Mississippi State. So, barring an upset one way or another, Mississippi should finish 7-5. Oxford and Lexington are about the same distance from Atlanta. If the teams finish with identical records, Ole Miss will have a better SEC record by one game. On the other hand, Atlanta is the city most familiar with the level of fan support Kentucky brings. The Bowl Committee knows this.

The only other school in the mix for the Chick-Fil-A is Vandy, which could still finish 8-4. Provided we win Saturday, they are for sure in the rearview mirror.

If you dare to dream, a scenario could get us into the Outback Bowl. First, UK would need to win out. Given that Vandy and UT have combined to win one game in the last month, this is certainly not outside the realm. Then, the crosshairs fall on South Carolina. The Cocks are 7-3 with games remaining at Florida and Clemson. Clemson is a mess with no head coach, but did win at Boston College two weeks ago. Since South Carolina beat us head to head, it would probably need to lose both games for us to have a realistic chance at the bid. We would then have identical conference records, our overall record would be better by a game, yet USC would hold the head to head trump card. The Cats would be coming off two wins, the Gamecocks, two losses.