Ole Miss crushed Louisiana-Monroe 59-0 yesterday, making us bowl eligible for the first time since Eli Manning took us to the Cotton Bowl after the 2003 season.
We play No. 20 LSU next Saturday in Baton Rouge for the Magnolia Bowl, and Mississippi State at home the day after Thanksgiving for the Egg Bowl. My State friends have already conceded the Egg Bowl, though you can never be sure with that rivalry. What Troy did to LSU in the first three quarters yesterday should give our players some hope. I give us 50-50 odds, which is pretty good considering we’re playing in Death Valley. LSU comes into the game having beaten us six games in a row.
Now that we’re bowl eligible, which bowl are we going to? We probably won’t know for sure until after the conference championships are finished, but we can prognosticate, which I will. Most bowls now have conference tie-ins, which makes predictions easier than it was in years past. The SEC has tie-ins with the Sugar Bowl (#1), Capitol One Bowl (#2), Cotton Bowl (#3/4/5), Outback Bowl (#3/4/5), Chick-fil-A Bowl (#3/4/5), Liberty Bowl (#6/7/8), Independence Bowl (#6/7/8), Music City Bowl (#6/7/8), and the PapaJohns.com Bowl (#9). This year, the SEC champion will most likely end up in the national championship game. That would essentially move us up a bowl game. Looking at the SEC standings, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia will all be taken ahead of us. LSU, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt have similar records to us.
Let’s assume for a moment we beat Mississippi State. If we beat LSU, we would have a good chance at the Cotton, Outback, and Chick-fil-A bowls. If we lose to LSU, they would presumably go to the Cotton Bowl and we would be competing with South Carolina and Vanderbilt for the Outback and Chick-fil-A bowls. South Carolina is currently 7-4 (4-4 in the SEC) and still has to play Clemson. Vanderbilt is currently 6-4 (4-3 in the SEC) and still has to play Tennessee and No. 24 Wake Forest. If we lose out on both those bowls, we’d most likely go to either the Liberty or Independence Bowl. We’ll know a lot more after next Saturday.
What happens if we lose to State? Well, that gets ugly and I don’t want to think about it.
In others news, Auburn continues to lose. No. 20 LSU beat Troy 40-31, which wouldn’t be news except for the fact that they had to score 40 points, at home, to pull it off. Vanderbilt became bowl eligible for the first time in 26 years by beating Kentucky 31-24.
Looking at the teams still in the hunt for the national championship, No. 1 Alabama beat Mississippi State 32-7, No. 3 Texas beat Kansas 35-7, and No. 4 Florida crushed No. 25 South Carolina 56-6. No. 2 Texas Tech and No. 5 Oklahoma were off this week, but will play each other next week in a game with huge implications. See last week’s football post for a more thorough look at the national championship race.