BCS Bowl

So in the last week there has been a lot of talk about what bowl Iowa will end up in. Most of the speculation points to either the Fiesta or the Capital One. I did a little bit of research to see what the actual procedure for BCS bowl selections is. Here is what I came up with. There are the following ties to bowls:

Big Ten Champ: Rose
Pac 10 Champ: Rose
SEC Champ: Sugar
Big 12 Champ: Fiesta

The rule goes that if one of your automatic qualifiers goes to the National Championship game, that bowl will be allowed to select a team from the qualifiers. If two different bowls lose their automatic qualifiers then the team that loses the #1 team gets first choice.

So if Texas beats Nebraska in the Big 12 title game, the National Championship game would probably be Texas vs the SEC champion. In that scenario, the Sugar Bowl would get the first pick since the SEC champion would be the #1 team, I think that they would choose the loser of the SEC Championship game. Then the Fiesta bowl would get the next selection and I think that Iowa would be their #1 choice. In this scenario, Boise State would probably be the opponent of the Hawks.

If Nebraska beats Texas, they would be the Big 12 champion and go to the Fiesta Bowl. If that is the case, the selections go this way for the bowls filling their slots: Orange, Fiesta, Sugar. In this scenario it would then be up to the Orange bowl to select between Iowa and Penn State and I think they choose Penn State. Iowa would then go to the Capital One bowl, which is not the worst thing that could happen.

Bottom line, cheer for the Longhorns as a win by them gives Iowa the best chance to make the Fiesta Bowl.