This is where the bowl structure works against Pitt and several other schools. It’s about who puts seats in the stands. Not wins and losses or rankings.
No one should be counting on the Big East heading to the Gator Bowl, period. With ND out of that, the Gator still has the right to take a Big 12 team. That means, assuming Nebraska wins this week, they and their well traveling horde will get the nod.
The Sun Bowl may have to invite a BE team, provided Rutgers gets to 7 wins. If the Scarlet Knights gag against L-ville then the Sun Bowl can and will grab a 6-6 ND team.
That leaves the Meineke Bowl, PapaJohns.com Bowl, International Bowl and St. Petersburg Bowl. There will be at least 4 teams (excluding Cinci) with 7 wins or more — but no more than 9. With the non-BCS bowls as long as the teams are within a couple wins of a team there is flexibility in who a bowl picks.
Meineke is the biggest and gets the first choice.
Meineke: The folks in Charlotte are going to take West Virginia unless the Mountaineers get routed by Pittsburgh and fall to Louisville and USF. In a bad economy, the ticket allure is just too big. The backup plan is Rutgers, but that might be difficult politically.
Papajohns.com: Rutgers or Pittsburgh. One of these teams may have to play outside the Big East tie-ins. See below.International: UConn. Book it.
Now in other stories, it is also factored that if Meineke gets UNC from the ACC rather than Virginia Tech or BC, then Pitt would stand an excellent chance of getting picked for it.
USF is a lock for the St. Pete’s bowl after last night.
Frankly, I’m sure I’ve made a mistake somewhere along the line because this crap is so convoluted and subject to changes and much more, so this could be completely wrong.
Rutgers is the only team still trying to clinch an absolute lock bowl bid.
The point is, as long as Pitt wins there is less of this crap to be concerned.
I know im planning a trip some where in this great land to watch my alma matar and I hope all of you true PITT fans and Pittsburger’s should consider coming along!
Lets Go PITT, beat WVU!
I think the main problem is geographics. For students on christmas break, no big deal going to arizona/florida/wherever to go see a game. But for those of us who are out in the working world, it’s tough to get mid-week time off to fly/drive hundreds of miles to watch the team play another mid-tier program. If they don’t play in Toronto, odds are I’ll be watching the game on TV.
lets win out
So I know we’re all still a little deflated after the loss to Cinci, but any bowl game presents a tremendous opportunity for this particular team and the future of the program.
But first things first….this Friday is another big game for us. We need to put on a show while in the national spotlight again this week. It’s always a great game but I have a feeling that the mountainqueers will be coming out with some revenge on their minds. We shouldn’t need motivated to play this rivalry game, but I am hoping we don’t look as flat as we did the other day.
Hope to see a lot of you at the game. Hail to Pitt.
There is an NCAA rule that no 6-6 bowl team can fill a slot when a team in an affiliated conference has 7 wins.
Go Pitt!
Stay classy, WVU!
So…I’ll be holding out a slim bit of hope for the International bowl, since I could care less what scrub bowl we play in.