2013: Post Week 6 Bowl Projections

The bad news is that I didn't have an opportunity to watch many football games last weekend because my homecoming Saturday "ran a little long." The good news is that no one at Off Tackle Empire watches football games anyway so it's not like anyone will notice.

The big winners this week are Michigan State and Indiana. I personally watched a Spartan team run an efficient offense, something they'd been missing earlier in the year. With the offense actually moving the ball and the defense performing to their usual standards, things are looking up for Sparty later in the season. Does that mean they're going to contend for the West? Doubtful. But they're going to win one or two more games than predicted earlier in the season.

Then there's Indiana. WHAT? INDIANA? Yeah. The Hoosiers hung 44 points on Penn State, a team we here are OTE thought was halfway decent. I guess that wasn't the case on Saturday.

Indiana's win creates problems for Illinois, who I had beating the Hoosiers in Bloomington. That isn't the case this week. With Indiana beating the Illini, Gophers and Boilermakers, they'll be bowl eligible for the first time since Bill Lynch roamed the sidelines/threw gum.

Then there are the losers: Iowa and Illinois. As I just stated, Illinois is going to lose to Indiana, which I previously had as the Illini's sixth win. Iowa lost to Michigan State and the only game they'll be favored in for the remainder of the season is against Purdue. They'll need an upset somewhere along the way to make it to six wins. Calling it right now: they'll upset someone. /homer'd

I just looked at Minnesota's schedule. Do they win another game this year?

Is Northwestern adopting Sparty's conspiracy theories?

Why does Kirk Ferentz not believe fake punts are legal?

Again: Illinois cannot have nice things.

The Rules:

• The best teams don't always go to the best games. In the end, butts in the seat and eyes to the television are the biggest factors. Some bowl games also have the "two loss-rule."
• The order of BCS selection is 1) Replacement for #1 Team; 2) Replacement for #2 Team; 3) Orange Bowl; 4) Sugar Bowl; 5) Fiesta Bowl. If a Big Ten or Pac-10 team qualifies for the BCS Championship Game, the Rose Bowl will not be required to take a non-automatic qualifier.
• The Outback Bowl only takes teams from the SEC East and Auburn.
• Penn State is not bowl eligible until 2016.
• I base these projections upon what I believe will be the final conference standings. The game by game method is rather unscientific: who would win the matchup 9 times out of 10? Naturally, that means I can't predict insane upsets.
• There's some sort of unwritten rule about the conference championship game loser not making a BCS Bowl. I believe that in the history of the BCS that only one conference championship game loser has made a BCS game.

The Projections:

For Illinois, Minnesota, Penn State and Purdue:

Disagree? That's what the comments are for.