Some bowls already taking shape

D18 New Mexico Bowl (Albequerque, NM): UTEP (6-6) - BYU (6-6)
D21 St. Petersburg Bowl (St. Petersburg, FL): Southern Miss (8-4) - ???
D22 Las Vegas Bowl (Las Vegas, NV): Utah (10-2) - ???
D23 Poinsettia Bowl (San Diego, CA): San Diego St (8-4) - Navy (8-3)*
D24 Hawaii Bowl (Honolulu, HI): Hawaii (9-3) - ???
D27 Independence Bowl (Shreveport, LA): Air Force (8-4) - ???
D29 Military Bowl (Washington D.C.): ECU (6-6) - ???
D30 Pinstripe Bowl (New York, NY): Kansas St (7-5) - Syracuse (7-5)
D30 Armed Forces Bowl (Dallas, TX): Army (6-5)* - ???
J07 Cotton Bowl (Arlington, TX): Texas A&M (9-3) - ???
*Navy - Army game to be played 12/11

Obviously there are too many bowls when 70 schools go to a bowl game and there are 119 (120?) teams in Div I-A. Possibilities for ND? Let's work backwards, if everything stands as now:

Championship (BCS #1 v BCS #2) - #2 Oregon v #1 Auburn
#2 Oregon (11-0, 8-0) plays Oregon St (5-6, 4-4). Oregon St is playing with nothing to lose but Oregon will probably pull it out.
#1 Auburn (12-0, 8-0) plays #19 South Carolina (9-3, 5-3). Auburn won the first match up but only because South Carolina blew a 27-21 lead with four turnovers in the fourth quarter. This game was in week 4 when Auburn was low on the radar. Auburn has had to pull out some wins recently. If Auburn wins, then they go to the championship game. If South Carolina wins, then USC goes to the Sugar Bowl.

Rose Bowl (Big Ten v Pac-10 (At-Large)) - #5 Wisconsin v #3 TCU
Wisconsin has locked in their Rose Bowl bid and TCU will go as an at large bid. Unless Auburn loses then it looks like TCU will get to go for the crystal ball.

#4 Stanford will be in a BCS game as an at-large bid. Out of the Pac-10, as of now only Arizona is bowl eligible. Washington will become bowl eligible with a win over WSU and Oregon St needs to be Oregon to become bowl eligible. So the Pac-10 will probably have only four teams eligible with two going to the BCS. The Pac-10 has tie ins to the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl (v WAC), Sun Bowl (v ACC), Holiday Bowl (v Big 12), Alamo Bowl (v Big 12) and Las Vegas Bowl (v Utah). Obviously, more spots than teams. ND has the possibility to fill in one of the Pac-10's vacant spots. ND won't play Utah again so Las Vegas is out. The most likely chances would be the Sun Bowl or Holiday Bowl.

The other chance is the Champs Sports Bowl (v ACC) taking a Big East spot. The Big East has 6 bowl eligible teams with only one going to a BCS game and tie-ins to 4 other games. However, the Champs Sports Bowl can take ND once in every four years.

Looking at that, the possible match ups would be:
Holiday Bowl: Baylor or Texas Tech
Sun Bowl or Champs Sports Bowl: Miami or NC State

But don't forget Miami sans head coach at the moment. Regardless, my prediction is:

D31 2p Sun Bowl (El Paso, TX): ND (7-5) v Miami (7-5, 5-3)

UConn will beat USF and go to the Orange Bowl. WVU will beat Rutgers and go to the Champs Sports bowl against NC State since WVU will be (9-3, 5-2).

Prediction #2 is:

D28 6:30p Champs Sports Bowl (Orlando, FL): ND (7-5) v NC State (8-4, 5-3)

UConn loses to USF, WVU beats Rutgers and goes to the Orange Bowl. ND is most attractive offer out of UConn, Pitt and USF. While Tampa is only an hour and a half from Orlando, Champs figures that ND will draw more revenue - both fans traveling to Orlando (let's face it, there is much much more to do in Orlando than in El Paso) and will draw a larger television audience.

Either which way, we'll find out the results on Sunday evening. We will need to see the outcome of some games tomorrow.

Go Irish!
~IT07