The Sun Bowl committee has publicly stated that if the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets are available then our team will be selected to travel to El Paso, Texas. All indications seems to say that Tech will still be around. I do realize that the Music City Bowl may still have a very small option. The Sun Bowl pits the ACC against an overall pretty weak Pac-12 Conference.
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Pac 12 Conference Bowl Eligibility Standings |
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|
Team |
Conference Record |
Overall Record |
|
Oregon |
8-1 |
11-2 |
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Stanford |
8-1 |
11-1 |
|
Washington |
5-4 |
7-5 |
|
California |
4-5 |
7-5 |
|
Utah |
4-5 |
7-5 |
|
Arizona State |
4-5 |
6-6 |
The Pac-12 has an interesting bowl selection rule where the Pac-12 bowls no longer have to choose based on overall records, conference standings, or head-to-head matchups. (via) Interesting rule but I like it. However, this rule does muddy the water in trying to figure out who our opponent will be.
Possible Opponents
Blog: Block U
This week, the popular Sun Bowl Pac-12 team is Utah. Both Heather Dinich and Bill Connelly have locked the Utes into this game. In fact, Scout.com is the only place I can find that has a different combination. Utah just recently lost a game to Colorado of all people and this loss seemed to drop their sexy-rating in the eyes of the Alamo Bowl committee. This game would be a rematch of the infamous Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl of 2005 where Utah passed all over Georgia Tech and we had absolutely no heart or interest in the football game.
Blog: House of Sparky
Arizona State has fired Dennis Erickson as their head coach but has been allowed to coach the team for their bowl game. I don't know how the team feels about Coach Erickson but it's worth it to think that they would want to win one for his last game as head coach, and probably his last one ever as head coach.
Blog: California Golden Blogs
This is the matchup I would most want mostly for historical reasons but also because that site has a great community that I think is similar to ours. Unfortunately, this has a pretty low chance of happening. California will be in the running with Washington for either the Holiday Bowl or Alamo Bowl.
Blog: UW Dawg Pound - Why so much emphasis on the word "dawg" in sports?
Same comments as above for Washington who has the lowest chance of going to the Sun Bowl. The Dawg Pound seems to be pretty confident in either the Holiday Bowl or Alamo Bowl depending on the BCS successes of the Oregon Ducks and Stanford Cardinal. It definitely helps their case that the USC Trojans are ineligible for a bowl berth this year.
The 2011 season has season Georgia Tech surpass many expectations by reaching the 8-win mark. One last hump that the Paul Johnson Era needs to overcome is achieving a bowl victory. The Sun Bowl may be the game to do just that. Though Cal would be a fun matchup, I want the weakest of all the Pac-12.