WKU Football: Analyzing WKU’s Bowl Options And Week 13 Projection Round-Up
On Friday night, the Tops defeated MTSU to finally capture that elusive sixth win and become bowl eligible for the seventh season in a row…
On Friday night, the Tops defeated MTSU to finally capture that elusive sixth win and become bowl eligible for the seventh season in a row. Their record now stands at 6–5 with Friday’s road trip to Florida International the final regular season game to play. Here are your updated Conference USA going into the last week of the regular season:
Reminder that Conference USA has the following bowl tie-ins:
Gasparilla Bowl
Boca Raton Bowl
Armed Forces Bowl (took place of Heart of Dallas Bowl)
New Orleans Bowl
Bahamas Bowl
New Mexico Bowl
Independence Bowl (secondary tie-in)
Right now the following teams are bowl eligible
Conference USA is guaranteed to have at least one more bowl eligible team after the MTSU/ODU match-up pits two 5–6 teams on Saturday. Louisiana Tech also sits at 5–6 and must beat UTSA at home to become bowl eligible as well.
With 9–10 potentially eligible teams, the C-USA teams must depend on other conferences not filling their bowl allotment. This year it appears some Power 5 conferences (SEC, Big 10) and Group of 5 Conferences (Sun Belt, AAC) may not fill all of their slots. This could open up not only the Independence Bowl but also other bowls such the Birmingham Bowl, The Cure Bowl (Orlando), The Frisco Bowl, The Quick Lane Bowl (Detroit) or the Hawaii Bowl.
WKU athletic director Todd Stewart said the following about Conference USA’s selection process
The more wins you have you’ll be placed first,” Stewart said. “All eight-win teams will be placed over seven-win teams, but then all seven-win teams will be placed over six-win teams. We need that separation because I think the league very well could have eight or nine teams with six wins, but will probably only have six or seven at most with seven. It’s a big week coming up.
Right now, there are 70 teams across college football that are eligible for 78 bowl spots. Four Week 13 games match up teams that are 5–6 so we’re guaranteed to be at least at 74 teams by week’s end. Three other teams play against programs that have losing records and probably a few others should get the total eligible team number past that 78 threshold. (ed. note — Florida State plays ULM on Championship Weekend. So, if the Seminoles defeat Florida on Saturday, they’ll also be playing for a sixth win)
So Friday’s match-up against FIU is a must win to make sure that WKU’s bowl streak will reach four years in a row. A win gets them priority over their six win conference brethren (ODU/MTSU winner; FIU, who still plays UMass on 12/2; UTSA, if they lose to LA Tech; and La Tech, if they beat UTSA) but a loss has WKU sweating it out until selections are announced on December 3rd.
Even if WKU wins, they’ll still be behind FAU, UNT, Marshall, Southern Miss and probably UAB in the pecking order due to attendance issues this season (though WKU has traveled well for every bowl game besides the 2014 Bahamas Bowl). WKU is a victim to their northern geography and that hurts them when it comes to being matched up with a potential bowl game compared to other teams closer to the Texas/Louisiana/Florida area bowls that dominate C-USA’s allotment. This puts WKU squarely in the crosshairs of one bowl game in C-USA’s bowl allotment: The Bahamas Bowl on December 22. Sanford himself eluded to the Bahamas as being a distinctive possibility in his comments this week:
And even cooler than that is what’s on the line is to essentially guarantee, hopefully, another game in Florida — or the Bahamas. There’s a lot at stake for those Florida players.
The other game I’d imagine he’s talking about is the Cure Bowl in Orlando. I’d much rather WKU go to Orlando for many reasons, with the number one being fan accessibility. Todd Stewart commented on this himself when we lobbied for the Cure Bowl on Twitter:
So the Bahamas Bowl writing might be on the wall with a WKU win on Friday. I still think C-USA is doing a disservice to WKU by making them go to Nassau for the second time in four years and letting FIU or another team (UAB) get to skip out on the recent right of passage of teams returning to bowls (WKU in 2014, MTSU in 2015, ODU in 2016) being shipped out to the Bahamas. Even if you book a flight on Sunday when the Bahamas Bowl participants are announced you are probably spending, at a minimum, $800 a person just on flights to Nassau and that doesn’t include the hotel rooms. Needless to say, that sucks for fans.
Should WKU lose Friday or Todd Stewart work his magic, WKU might be able to swing the Cure Bowl, the Birmingham Bowl (only 3 hours and 45 minutes from Bowling Green), the Quick Lane Bowl or another unfilled game. We’ll have to wait and see.
With that in mind here are your updated media projections following week 12.
SB Nation
Hawaii Bowl vs. Fresno State
CBS Sports
Bahamas Bowl vs. Akron
NBC Sports
Heart of Dallas Bowl vs. UCLA
Bleacher Report
Independence Bowl vs. Florida State
Sporting News
Armed Forces Bowl vs. Army
Sports Illustrated
Armed Forces Bowl vs. Army
ESPN.com
Quick Lane Bowl vs. Western Michigan
or
Independence Bowl vs. Florida State
College Football News
Cure Bowl vs. Georgia State
Orlando Sentinel
Independence Bowl vs. Duke
Athlon Sports
Birmingham Bowl vs. Troy
Underdog Dynasty
Bahamas Bowl vs. Northern Illinois
The Sun Herald (Biloxi, MS)
Cure Bowl vs. Georgia State
Forgotten 5
Bahamas Bowl vs. Central Michigan
USA Today
New Orleans Bowl vs. Troy
The All-American ($)
Bahamas Bowl vs. Akron
Brett McMurphy/The Score
Armed Forces Bowl vs. Army
Gridiron Now
Cure Bowl vs. Appalachian State
As you can see the media is all over the place. A lot of bowl projections are just click bait and usually are way off when the actual pairings are announced. As of right now I’d rank these as the most probable destinations with only the top three or four even being a possibility:
Bahamas Bowl
Cure Bowl
Birmingham Bowl
Hawaii Bowl
Quick Lane Bowl
Independence Bowl
Armed Forces Bowl
If WKU is going back to Nassau we’ll know on Sunday. If not, the bowl lineups will be announced on December 3. At the very least, WKU should be bowling for a fourth straight season and that sure beats staying home for the holidays.
What do you think about WKU’s projected destinations? Is the media completely off base with their predictions? Where do you want to see the Tops go? Let us know in a comment below, via Twitter at @TheTowelRackWKU or on our Facebook page.