Projecting all 35 bowl matchups

This week I'm projecting Boise State to finish ahead of TCU in the BCS standings and earn an automatic invite to the Rose Bowl. The Broncos will need it,
Projecting all 35 bowl matchups
Projecting all 35 bowl matchups /

bcs-bowls.jpg

This week I'm projecting Boise State to finish ahead of TCU in the BCS standings and earn an automatic invite to the Rose Bowl. The Broncos will need it, because I'm told there's almost no chance the Sugar Bowl, with the first at-large choice, would select Boise over a highly ranked Big Ten team, and the Orange Bowl, with second pick, won't want to stage a Boise-Virginia Tech rematch. It can, however, take TCU.

A few other notes:

• With a win over Army this week, Notre Dame will become bowl eligible and available to any game with an at-large spot to fill. I placed the Irish in Las Vegas. Note, there is no longer a rule preventing 6-6 at-large teams from being picked above candidates with better records.

• An unusual new agreement allows the SEC to order the Liberty Bowl to replace the Conference USA champion (currently projected to be UCF) with the No. 5 Big East team (in this case USF) if there aren't enough SEC teams to fill its ninth slot in Birmingham. (In other words, it gets an SEC-Big East matchup in Memphis instead.) The C-USA champ would be placed in one of seven ESPN-owned bowls. I moved UCF to the Armed Forces Bowl to face Army, but this is purely an arbitrary guess.

• Last week, I had the Pac-10 selection order wrong -- the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl (No. 5) picks ahead of the Maaco Las Vegas Bowl (No. 6). It might not matter, because right now I don't project enough teams to fill either.

• The Dallas Football Classic is now the TicketCity Bowl. Just so you know.

• As always, it's important to remember that most bowls are not obligated to choose their teams in exact order of conference standings. For instance, "ACC No. 3" means "third choice of ACC teams" -- not "the ACC's third-place team."

• As of now, I'm projecting exactly 70 eligible teams for 70 spots.

Teams in bold have accepted bowl invitation. * -- replacement team for a conference without enough eligible teams.


Published
Stewart Mandel
STEWART MANDEL

Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated Stewart Mandel first caught the college football bug as a sophomore at Northwestern University in 1995. "The thrill of that '95 Rose Bowl season energized the entire campus, and I quickly became aware of how the national media covered that story," he says. "I knew right then that I wanted to be one of those people, covering those types of stories."  Mandel joined SI.com (formerly CNNSI.com) in 1999. A senior writer for the website, his coverage areas include the national college football beat and college basketball. He also contributes features to Sports Illustrated. "College football is my favorite sport to cover," says Mandel. "The stakes are so high week in and week out, and the level of emotion it elicits from both the fans and the participants is unrivaled." Mandel's most popular features on SI.com include his College Football Mailbag and College Football Overtime. He has covered 14 BCS national championship games and eight Final Fours. Mandel's first book, Bowls, Polls and Tattered Souls: Tackling the Chaos and Controversy That Reign Over College Football, was published in 2007. In 2008 he took first place (enterprise category) and second place (game story) in the Football Writers Association of America's annual writing contest. He also placed first in the 2005 contest (columns). Mandel says covering George Mason's run to the Final Four was the most enjoyable story of his SI tenure.  "It was thrilling to be courtside for the historic Elite Eight upset of UConn," Mandel says.  "Being inside the locker room and around the team during that time allowed me to get to know the coaches and players behind that captivating story." Before SI.com Mandel worked at ESPN the Magazine, ABC Sports Online and The Cincinnati Enquirer. He graduated from Northwestern University in 1998 with a B.S. in journalism. A Cincinnati native, Mandel and his wife, Emily, live in Santa Clara, Calif.