Winners and Losers of the BCS Bowl Sweepstakes
Will all of this talk about the BCS Standings coming out Sunday it has most College Football fans dreaming about where their team will end up come December and January.
Deciding on who goes where and what goes who come BCS Bowl time can be one of the most confusing tasks ever created. The BCS Rules might be harder to understand than the IRS Tax Code.
For a lot of teams, though, they have already made their plans for one of those December 15th Bowl Games if they even make one at all.
This sportswriter’s favorite bowl is the infamous Belk Bowl.
Simply a genius concept with a perfect sponsor…
Think about it…
A pair of teams who look like Abercrombie & Fitch on the rack but when you put them on the field and try them on you see it just a cheap imitation with an Alexander Julian logo.
Ahhhh…. The Belk Bowl…
The ACC, the Big East, the Big 10 or any of the Mid-Major Conferences can go ahead and arrange travel plans for Charlotte, North Carolina, or anywhere a December bowl might be happening.
This is simply not the year for these conferences to shine and the Belk Bowl will be more than happy to have you as its featured game.
So with those schools out of the way, it leaves the Pac 12, the Big 12, the SEC and an Independent to fight for the right to battle for the title.
There are currently eight teams from these four regions of college football who are undefeated on the season and still have high hopes for the BCS National Championship Game on January 7, 2013, down in Miami, Florida.
So who will be left standing when the dust settles?
Where will your team fall?
Let’s take a look into ole Woody’s Crystal Ball to see who will be dancing on the streets of South Beach, Florida, in January.
Fiesta Bowl
This year’s Fiesta Bowl should be another classic as the high octane offense of the West Virginia Mountaineers will square off against the UCS Trojans.
The Mountaineers will enter the game as the champions of the Big 12 to face the Trojans will be the runner up in the Pac 12.
West Virginia will no doubt be emotional since it did not make it into the BCS National Championship Game, while Head Coach Lane Kiffin and his Trojans will be happy to have slipped into the backdoor of a BCS Bowl Game.
Rose Bowl
The Rose Bowl will feature the team with the biggest beef of the BCS Rankings as the Oregon Ducks will square off against the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Oregon will have been a mainstay in the Top 5 for the entire season, but will lose out in the end and will have to settle for just another BCS Game.
Buckeye Head Coach Urban Meyer will be riding high as he will deliver Ohio State back into the national scene in the biggest of BCS arenas at the Rose Bowl.
Orange Bowl
The Florida State Seminoles will sadly accept its appointed spot as the ACC representative in the Orange Bowl and will draw the challenge of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights who come out as the Big East Champion.
This will be an intriguing matchup as the Orange Bowl is set to change up the requirements for who will be playing in the game come next season.
Add to the fact the Big East will probably get left out of any and all future bowl contracts as college football moves forward with the Plus-1 format this will be a battle worthy of the BCS billing.
Sugar Bowl
This one is going to shake some things up for sure.
The Georgia Bulldogs will rise up from the ashes of its self-destruction in Week 6 to make it to the SEC Championship and gain the right to represent the conference in the Sugar Bowl.
The Bulldogs opponent will be the Texas Longhorns who will finish runner-up in the Big 12 and earn a BCS Ranking worthy to claim this spot in New Orleans, Louisiana.
There will no doubt be an army of SEC and Big 12 fans stewing about this match-up.
BCS National Championship Game
And finally…
The big one everyone has been waiting on…
Playing for the Crystal Football in Miami, Florida, will be none other than the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
Alabama will continue to chug along in the SEC and should make its case pretty easy with its top ranking each week.
The wildcard here is the Fighting Irish who will continue to win each week and will find a way to creep past the Oregon Ducks in the final poll and secure its place alongside Alabama.
All of college football has been waiting for the Irish to become relevant again and it is going to happen sooner than anyone expects.
Is this Notre Dame team ready and fully worthy of a chance to play for the BCS National Championship?
Maybe not, but the computers and BCS Rankings were set to favor the Irish as an Independent team.
Since this is the first opportunity Notre Dame has been in this position, it will get its shot to shock the college football world in more ways than one.
---------------------------------------M Shannon Smallwood has more than 10 years of college and professional sports experience in broadcasting and journalism and is the ACC Football Guru for Rant Sports.
Follow him @woodysmalls.
