BCS Bowls

[LS20]

so somebody clear this up for me... aside from the bowl being selected to host the championship game (Sugar, for this year), the rest of the BCS bowls select its participants by a panel?

how can espn and cnnsi, for example, make bowl projections when there's no real selection guideline? i know the rose bowl traditionally pits the winner of the Big 10 against the winner of the Pac 10....who are perenially really strong teams anyways... but now its pretty much arbitrary right?

reason I ask is because most of the espn writers project Texas and Michigan to play in the rose bowl...while alot of texans are predicting Rose Bowl instead. as far as i understand now, there are no basis for either of these projections

 

[sciencewhiz]

There is an order. Sugar bowl gets first two picks, and pick the top two teams. Then, each of the Bowls gets their "tie-in" conference Champion. The Rose Bowl has tie-ins with both Pac 10 and Big 10. Fiesta gets the Big 12, Sugar gets SEC, and Orange gets their choice of Big East or ACC.

If a bowl lost it's tie-in to the national championship, it gets to choose one of the remaining eligible teams. Fiesta lost the #1 team, so it gets to pick an at large team. Rose Bowl loses USC, so they'd pick next.

There are a couple of things that dictate who can get picked as an at large team. They must have 9 wins, and be ranked in the top 12 of the BCS. If they are ranked in the top 4, they are guaranteed a spot. If a non-bcs team (TCU) is ranked in the top 6, they automatically have to get picked. However, those teams can be picked by any bowl.

The rose bowl always tries to have pac 10 vs big 10. Thus, they would chose washington state, if possible. However, if texas makes it to the top 4 and TCU makes it to the top 6, they don't have a choice and wouldn't be able to pick WSU. The other bowls care about which teams have a national following (TV) and travel well (ticket sales).

 

[sciencewhiz]

Here are the assumptions that the ESPN writers seem to be making:

Maisel and Wojciechowski: Oklahoma and USC win out. TCU finishes in the top 6. Michigan beats OSU to win Big 10. LSU wins out (wins SEC). Pittsburg wins Big East, FSU wins ACC. Texas wins out and finishes in the top 4.
BCS Standings: Oklahoma, USC, LSU, Texas, TCU are all required, as is Pitt, FSU, Michigan for winning the conferences

Fiesta choses LSU to replace Oklahoma (picking the best remaining team). Rose Bowl has michigan (big 10 champ) and chooses Texas to replace USC, since they can't chose WSU. Orange has FSU and picks Pitt. Fiesta has LSU and the last remaining team is TCU.

Davis: TCU loses or somehow doesn't make the top 6. Oklahoma and USC win out. Michigan beats Ohio State and wins the conference. WSU loses, so rose bowl can't chose them or ohio state only falls to 4th, even with the loss. I don't understand why he has both Pitt and Miami. If pitt beats Miami, I can't imagine Miami still being in the top 12 with 3 late losses. If Miami beats Pitt, I can't imagine Pitt being in the top 12.

Revsine: TCU loses or somehow doesn't make the top 6. Oklahoma and USC win out. Michigan beats Ohio State and wins the conference. WSU loses, so rose bowl can't chose them or ohio state only falls to 4th, even with the loss. Miami beats Pitt and wins big east.
BCS Standings: Oklahoma, USC, LSU, are all required, as is Miami, FSU, Michigan for winning the conferences.

Sugar gets Oklahoma and USC. Fiesta choses FSU. Rose gets Michigan and choses Texas. Orange Choses Miami (Big East champion, and FSU is already taken). Orange then takes LSU. Fiesta then chooses Ohio State.

Hope some of that makes sense (not sure it does to me) 😉