Watching the Bowl Watchers – Last Look Before the Real Thing

In just a few days, all of the guestimating, rules interpreting, and brain scrambling will be over. On Sunday, bowl matchups will be announced, and we will finally know the Wildcats’ warm weather destination.

Before we explore the guestimators’ guestimations, I wanted to highlight this piece from Teddy Greenstein on Wednesday. Apparently, the good folks at the Outback Bowl LOVE Northwestern, and based on Teddy’s story, it sounds unlikely the ‘Cats would drop below Outback. Also, Teddy reports that if Nebraska loses to Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game, odds are strong that the Capital One Bowl would select Northwestern over Nebraska. (In that situation, Michigan would not be eligible.)

On to the guestimators… We provided our own prognostication and rules secret decoder ring earlier this week, so instead of rehashing too much of that, we are going to jump right to the professional guestimators’ projections. Obviously, the biggest change to impact their projections was Wisconsin’s loss to Penn State last weekend, dropping the Badgers to 7-5. By rule, if they lose to Nebraska in the Big Ten Championship Game, neither the Capital One Bowl nor the Outback Bowl could select them over the Wildcats. Northwestern would have two more wins, and three fewer losses. Either of those would keep Cap One and Outback from plucking the Badgers before the Wildcats. That is how we interpret the rules, how the Big Ten explained the rules to us, how Adam Rittenberg at ESPN.com reported the rules to be, and how the Capital One Bowl confirmed the rules to be. More on this in a moment.

Most of the guestimators are projecting Outback Bowl for Northwestern. There are three outliers – Matt Murschel of the Orlando Sentinel places the ‘Cats in his backyard, the Capital One Bowl against Georgia, a pick I’m told is “not insignificant.” CollegeFootballNews.com is the only one of the group who picks Wisconsin to win the Big Ten Championship Game, leaving Nebraska on the open market, pushing Northwestern down a slot into the Gator Bowl. Phil Steele also projects NU to the Gator Bowl, but unless there has been an adjustment to the rules, it does not appear plausible. He has Nebraska winning the Big Ten Championship Game and the Outback Bowl selecting Wisconsin ahead of Northwestern. As we just explained, the Outback Bowl is not allowed to choose a 7-6 Wisconsin team with 9-3 Northwestern still on the board.

Now let’s take a complete look… This time, so that you have a full lay of the land, in addition to showing you the professional guestimators projection of the Wildcats’ destination, we are also including where they have the other relevant teams heading – Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

Note that changes for Northwestern (or lack thereof) from last time are marked in parentheses.

Capital One Bowl, January 1, Orlando, FL

• Matt Murschel/Orlando Sentinel, vs. Georgia (moved up from Gator Bowl)
• Nebraska – Rose Bowl vs. Stanford
• Michigan – Outback Bowl vs. LSU
• Wisconsin – Gator Bowl vs. South Carolina

Outback Bowl, January 1, Tampa, FL

• Jerry Palm/CBSsports.com, vs.South Carolina (no change)
• Nebraska – Rose Bowl vs. Stanford
• Michigan – Capital One Bowl vs. Georgia
• Wisconsin – Gator Bowl vs. Mississippi State
• Stewart Mandel/SI.com, vs. South Carolina (was vs. Georgia)
• Nebraska – Rose Bowl vs. Stanford
• Michigan – Capital One Bowl vs. Georgia
• Wisconsin – Gator Bowl vs. Mississippi State
• Brad Edwards/ESPN.com, vs. South Carolina (moved up from Gator Bowl)
• Nebraska – Rose Bowl vs. Stanford
• Michigan – Capital One Bowl vs. Texas A & M
• Wisconsin – Gator Bowl vs. Mississippi State
• Mark Schlabach/ESPN.com, vs. South Carolina (moved up from Gator Bowl)
• Nebraska – Rose Bowl vs. Stanford
• Michigan – Capital One Bowl vs. Texas A & M
• Wisconsin – Gator Bowl vs. Vanderbilt
• Paul Myerberg & Erick Smith/USATODAY, vs. South Carolina (moved up from Gator Bowl) (Note: Myberberg and Smith combined their picks this week)
• Nebraska – Rose Bowl vs. Stanford
• Michigan – Capital One Bowl vs. Georgia
• Wisconsin – Gator Bowl vs. Mississippi State

Gator Bowl, January 1, Jacksonville, FL

• CollegeFootballNews.com, vs. Mississippi State (moved down from Outback Bowl)
• Wisconsin – Rose Bowl vs. Stanford
• Nebraska – Capital One Bowl vs. Texas A & M
• Michigan – Outback Bowl vs. South Carolina (interestingly enough, these guys flip flopped Michigan and Northwestern from last week’s projections; their pick of Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl and Nebraska in the Capital One Bowl is unchanged from last week)
• Phil Steele, vs. Mississippi State (no change)
• Nebraska – Rose Bowl vs. Stanford
• Michigan – Capital One Bowl vs. Georgia
• Wisconsin – Outback Bowl vs. South Carolina

;

;