strato

Rivals.com Staff

Here are our latest bowl projections for this season. A lot depends on whether Houston wins the Conference USA title game and earns a BCS bid. C-USA has six bowl tie-ins but just five bowl-eligible teams. If Houston gets into the BCS, that would leave two C-USA bowl slots unfilled.
The Pac-12 and SEC - assuming both get two teams into the BCS - are going to have unfilled slots, as well. Our projections also have the Big Ten getting two teams into the BCS; even in that scenario, the league is going to have an "extra" team. If the Big 12 gets just one team into the BCS, as we have projected, it, too, will have an "extra" team that can fill an unfilled slot.
The Mid-American has six bowl-eligible teams but just three tie-ins. But the MAC has a great shot at five bids and could get six.
A few notes about these projections:
[ Related: BCS breakdown: No surprises as 'Bama, LSU top standings ]
A few notes about these bowl projections:
There again are 35 bowls, though there have been some name changes.
A bowl's tie-in with a league doesn't necessarily mean it will get the third-, fourth-, fifth-, etc., place team from the league; rather, it means it gets the third, fourth, fifth, etc., selection from that league.
An asterisk denotes a team that will be in the bowl because a league will not be able to fulfill its obligation. In some situations, other conferences have deals to provide teams if the "original" conference can't fill its spots; in those instances, the fill-in conference first fills it own bowl slots. If the fill-in conference doesn't have enough bowl-eligible teams, the bowl then is allowed to pick an at-large team that is bowl eligible.
An ampersand denotes a team that already has accepted a bid.

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Rivals.com College Football - Rivals.com 2011 bowl projections