Any thoughts of Lloyd Carr, Hart, Henne and Long getting to tee off on the ACC’s #4 team are gone. Nope, they’ll get Urban Meyer and defending national champion Florida. An interesting match-up for sure, as Florida edged out Michigan for the second BCS championship spot last year and many (including Carr) were none too happy with the comments made by Meyer as he campaigned for his Gators. Water under the bridge maybe, but it’ll make for an interesting subplot. Required for the game? Your Urban Meyer Wiener gear while they last: Subplots: 1. As mentioned above, Hart, Henne, and Long and especially Carr’s last game. 2. Meyer vs. Carr after the bitterness of last year. 3. Is Urban Meyer a candidate for the coaching job? He didn’t exactly slam the door shut in recent comments. 4. Will a signficant number of Michigan fans go to this game? [Latest Ticket Prices here] 5. Will Michigan have named a coach by then? Will he be at the game?
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Pasadena-Strange Surroundings for Bucks
Quick trivia question: Who’s been to more Rose Bowls in the last 22 years, Michigan State or Ohio State? Answer: It’s a tie, they’ve each been to one…Check it out In the Buckeye’s case this is largely due to a combination of John Cooper’s inability to take down the Wolverines in the 90s, and most recently Ohio State’s success after the BCS was instituted in 1998. Anyway you slice it is still a little bizarre that Iowa has visited Pasadena more often than the Bucks during this stretch. In the same 22-year span Michigan has been to the Granddaddy nine times winning three.
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Updated Michigan Bowl Projections
Still pretty meaningless, here’s where some of your major sources have Michigan’s bowl game and opponent for 2007. Complete BCS bowl projections are tracked here. CollegeFootballNews (Scout.com): Michigan vs. South Carolina & the OBC, Outback Bowl CBS Sportsline: Florida State (& the O-est BC) vs. Michigan, Champs Sports Bowl ESPN (Bruce Feldman): Michigan vs. Kansas State, Alamo Bowl ESPN (Mark Schlabach): Michigan vs. Tennessee, Captial One Bowl By the way, two of the sources have your Ohio State Buckeyes returning to the big game, and I can’t say I see them losing a game up to that point.
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Big Ten Rose Bowl Tie-Breaker Rules
10/25/2009: The Big Ten rules changed in 2009, FCS games played is no longer a factor. Click here for more. 11/8/08 Update: Spartan fans, that Iowa win over PSU is a buzz kill. Had Penn State won out and lost to Michigan State, Dantonio and company would go to the Rose Bowl per the rules below. Not to say that Ohio State won’t lose again but I think that’s unlikely. As reported by Jim Carty and noted here, I’ve confirmed the rule changes to the Big Ten tie-breaker. The rule change applies to the Rose Bowl only, but it does penalized Big Ten teams for scheduling teams from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), aka the former Division I-AA. I got this from the Big Ten offices, who also mentioned that this would be put online at bigten.org ASAP: METHOD TO DETERMINE BIG TEN CONFERENCE AUTOMATICREPRESENTATIVE TO THE BOWL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES Effective for bowl games following the 2006-09 regular football seasons, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) will consist of five (5) bowl games: BCS National Championship Game, Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, and Sugar Bowl. Participation by a Big Ten Conference member institution will be determined as follows: a. BCS National Championship Game. In the event the conference has one or two football teams ranked No. 1 and/or No. 2…
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Novel Voting Concept
I think SI’s college football writer Stewart Mandel is starting to get it. Now if all the other coaches and media members can catch on. After going into his take on why they shouldn’t release college football polls until week 5, he nonetheless came to this conclusion: What I ended up doing is something we should probably all start doing around this time every season: Throwing out my previous ballot and starting from scratch. As a result, some teams moved up or down from last week more dramatically than others despite similar results Hmm…there’s an idea. Leave your ego at the door and don’t let your previous ballots influence your vote from week to week?
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Projecting Michigan’s 2008 BCS Bowl
Filed under for what it is worth, here’s where some of your major (and not so major) sources have Michigan ending up this season. Complete BCS bowl projections are tracked here. All the major sources have the Wolverines ending up in the BCS. Each also assume M trips up somewhere along the way or doesn’t pass another undefeated squad to make it to New Orleans for the BCS Championship. CollegeFootballNews (Scout.com): Michigan vs. Hawaii, Orange Bowl ESPN (Ivan Maisel): Michigan vs. Texas, Rose Bowl ESPN (Mark Schlabach): Michigan vs. Oklahoma, Rose Bowl SI.com (Stewart Mandel): Michigan vs. Rutgers, Rose Bowl I think the Rose Bowl is probably the right pick. While you can expect that Michigan would run through the Big Ten schedule up until Wisconsin and Ohio State, there’s still the matter of Oregon and Notre Dame in the next few weeks.
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Where the Money’s At
We showed some early bowl projections compliments of collegefootballnews.com last week. Now here’s some early Vegas futures on the Big Ten champion and for the BCS. Here you go: What does this mean? Pretty much nothing. Certainly Michigan is considered as a contender but I think a lot of the money is based on schedule.
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2008-09 BCS Bowl Projections? Here you go…
for all bowl projections, visit this site.