[NU Sports] when will we know?

[cherron604 at aol.com]

Facts about 3 of the Big Ten's bowls:
 
The Alamo Bowl is played in a 66,000 seat stadium.  Attendance since 1995 has varied between 50,690 (Wisconsin-Colorado in 2002) and 65,380 (Penn State-A&M in 1999).  Our attendance of 60,028 was right in the middle (sixth-highest).  The variability of the ten-year attendance figures would suggest a high-dependancy on tickets sold to participating schools.
 
The Sun Bowl is played in a stadium that seats 50,426.  Attendance since 1995 has varied slightly, between 47,812 (Purdue-Washingon State in 2001) and 51,288 (Purdue-Arizona State in 2004).  The low attendance of 42,721 in 1996 has been attributed to a major sponsorship change, from John Hancock to Wells Fargo (by way of its predecessor Norwest Bank).  The ten-year attendance variability here is pretty low, indicating less dependancy on participant ticket sales.
 
The Music City Bowl is played in the 68,798 seat Coliseum in Nashville.  Big Ten attendance figures are limited - we have only been going since 2002.  Attendance has risen steadily from 39,183 (Minnesota-Arkansas in 2002) to 66,089 (Minnesota-Alabama in 2004).
 
Could it be that the recent shift in bowl prediction from Music City to Sun might involve some conference/bowl discussions to insure that the lower-tier bowls in the bigger stadiums associate themselves with the Hawks and the Gophers, while the smaller-sited Sun Bowl looks more closely at us ?
 
Just a thought...
 
Chuck Herron   Tech '85
 
-----Original Message-----
From: SjT (Stephen J. Truog) <sjtruog at yahoo.com>
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Sent: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 18:46:55 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] when will we know?


> I don't believe that we would be eligible for an
> at-large bid because 
> the Big Ten will not fill all its bowl slots.  To

I think you misunderstood me - I was responding to a
post saying that since Tennessee lost, we'd likely
face an at-large ACC team in Nashville since the SEC
is out of teams. But I thought the Music City was #6
in SEC pecking order, so -- unless the SEC gets two
BCS teams -- we'd still face one of their Big Six this
year.

> wants Michigan and we won't fall to Nashville.  The
> one thing that 
> mitigate against the Sun is a victory by Arizona
> State over Arizona next 

Out here in Phoenix, they don't even hope for the Sun
-- it's Insight or Vegas if ASU wins. Unless the Pac
10 gets an extra BCS team in Oregon, it's tough to see
anyone but USC, Oregon and UCLA (their three ranked
teams most of the year) getting their top three bids
(BCS, Holiday and Sun).

> a rematch.  The most likely pairing is NU against
> the winner of the Big 
> Game tonight between Cal and Stanford.  It still
> gives us a match of 

Well, if Oregon gets a second BCS slot, then we'd
probably get Cal -- but if not, it'd have to be Oregon
or UCLA. Which would be a tough matchup either way.
Yeah, UCLA has a poor D like us, but their O is pretty
solid and they've been a top 15 team most of the
season.

Of course, if Oregon beats out OSU for the Fiesta
spot, then we've got no shot at the Sun Bowl anyway
and would be in Nashville.

UCLA-NU would have a high over/under line, but we
would certainly be big underdogs. Ditto for facing one
of the six ranked SEC teams in their backyard.

GO CATS!!!
-SjT

* * * * * * * * *
STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!!


    
        
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