I know the economy sucks. I know there has to be a lot of concern amongst the bowls about being able to draw a sufficient number of supporters to the games. I know that Notre Dame draws. I know. I know.
Despite some struggles down the stretch, Notre Dame is still drawing interest from the Cotton, Gator and Sun bowls heading into its final two games.
“The great thing about the system the way it is now is you can really afford to wait until the whole season is over before making a decision,” Cotton Bowl president Rick Baker said.
The Irish (6-4) are 19 1/2-point favorites against Syracuse (2-8) on Saturday and will be heavy underdogs a week later against sixth-ranked USC (9-1). And although neither the Cotton Bowl nor the Gator Bowl has ever awarded a berth to a five-loss team, the presidents of both bowls said a loss to the Trojans wouldn’t necessarily eliminate the Irish from consideration. [Emphasis added.]
“I don’t think we necessarily look just at the records,” Baker said. “We’re going to look at the matchup and the history that we have with the programs that we’re considering. That’s not a policy that we don’t take a 7-5 team, that’s just the way that it’s happened.”
That’s “just the way that it’s happened”? Bowl Dude, please.
While he’s at it, maybe he can pair the Irish with a 6-6 team so that they actually have a shot at winning. There’s probably no policy against that either.
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“But the Cotton Bowl can select Notre Dame over an SEC team once in the next two years.”
That answers the question I had. But WHY would the SEC agree to such a clause?
Unfortunately, I think it would make sense for them to invite ND this year… and I can’t stand ND! But there’s a decent chance the Irish won’t be eligible next year, and this year’s SEC options aren’t worse than normal (most likely, a down LSU team is the best available, assuming UGA goes CapOne).
As for the Gator and Sun Bowls — it’s not like whatever Big East option they have is much better. While I’d take the Big 12 option in a second, I think one of those guys has to take Big East/ND… so would you rather try to drag Pitt/UConn to El Paso?
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I was looking at the bowl predictions on one of the sports sites and “yawn”- there is nothing before Dec. 31 that would interest me whatsoever. I am not a playoff proponent, but if they could work a playoff/bowl mix, I might be interested. However, the biggest argument against the bowl system isn’t the BCS, it’s the scores of bowls flooding late December with the likes of UL-Lafayette, UTEP, Memphis, Northern Illinois, Nevada and FAU.
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The only actual angst against Notre Dame is this ability right here to jump other teams with fewer losses in bowl games (see Oregon a few years ago). If they receive a bid to the Cotton Bowl, I believe they will probably end up playing Missouri or the loser of the Oklahoma-Texas Tech game this weekend. Notre Dame beat a 1-9 San Diego State team by only a touchdown earlier this year, so we’ll see what happens if they receive a bid to the Cotton Bowl.
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This is one of the biggest reasons I hate ND. The way they can unfairly muscle their way into bowl game bids they don’t deserve.
The only upside is watching them get obliterated by a top Big 12 team would be hilarious.
Sadly, they’ll be crying all the way to the bank. 😦
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