[NU Sports] 2007 BCS/Big Ten Bowls

[cherron604 at aol.com]

Does anyone recall last year's Bowl Scenario:

After Big Ten play completed on 11/17, The standings were:

1? OSU? 7-1,11-1
2? IL????? 6-2, 9-3
???MICH 6-2, 8-4
4 WIS?? 5-3, 9-3
5 PSU? 4-4, 8-4
?? Iowa? 4-4,6-6
7 IU????? 3-5,7-5
?? MSU? 3-5,7-5
?? Pur??? 3-5,7-5
?? NU??? 3-5,6-6

After 11/24, the penultimate weekend, OSU was #3 and Illinois was #15 in the BCS standings.

On 11/28 (Wednesday before title game weekend), Wisconsin accepted an Outback bid.? This was controversial, because if the conference did not get 2 BCS berths, Illinois would probably fall to the Cap One, and Michigan would probably fall to the Alamo.

On 11/30 (Friday before title game weekend), Penn State accepted an Alamo bid.? This was even more interesting - because if the conference didn't get 2 BCS berths, Michigan might fall to the Champs bowl.

After 12/1, title game weekend, OSU was #1 and Illinois was 'only' #13 in the BCS standings.

The champions were OSU (Big Ten - #1), LSU (SEC - #2), Virginia Tech (ACC - #3), Oklahoma (Big 12 - #4), USC (Pac 10, #7) and West Virginia (Big East - #9)

The at-large berths went to Georgia (#5), Kansas (#8), Hawaii (#10) and Illinois (#13)

The odd men out were Missouri (#6), ASU (#11) and Florida (#12).? Since there were already 2 teams from the Big 12 and SEC, only Arizona State had a complaint.

So did Jim Delaney engineer those two mid-week bids to force the BCS to take Illinois (and prevent a retiring Lloyd Carr from dropping to the Champs Bowl)?? Or did Delaney have a good idea that the BCS would take Illinois, even though ASU was ahead of Illinois in the BCS standings, and Boston College was right behind ?

Do we anticipate any mid-week announcements this year ?

Chuck Herron?? Tech '85