Last week, we looked at all the possible outcomes for the Big 12 race, and how each impacted the conference standings, in turn affecting the Longhorns’ bowl game. On Thanksgiving night, TCU emphatically answered the top question on the decision tree, with their 48-10 victory.
Now that a week’s worth of games have been played and another Playoff Poll is released, there is more certainty are fewer possible outcomes. However, even with less conditional statements, the end result is an unknown. HornSports spoke to representatives from the CFP, the Russell Athletic Bowl, the Texas Bowl, and the Liberty Bowl to make this forecast as accurate as possible. After doing all the legwork, the only apparent thing at this point, is that nobody can speak with certainty until Sunday at Noon.
For starters, let’s take a look at how this weekend’s Big 12 games are going to impact the equation:
https://www.hornsports.com/images/bowlpossibilitites2_sm.jpg
Based on that selection order, there are several key assumptions that needed to be made in order to arrive at distinctive results:
1. The color-coded “Selection Order” above is the actual order that bowls will select Big 12 teams. It is important to note that the Big 12, unlike the SEC, does not gerrymander selection of teams by the league’s bowl partners. That means that until the Alamo Bowl knows which teams will be selected to play on New Year’s Day, they cannot possibly know who to invite to their game. Similarly, downstream where the Texas Bowl is positioned, it is a pure guess at this juncture for anyone to say what their matchup will be since teams will be selected for the Playoff, New Year’s Day Bowls, and two other bowls before they know which teams are available to them.
2. At 11-1/8-1, the winner of the Big 12 goes to the 4-team College Football Playoff. With TCU vaulting up to No. 3 in the rankings this week, either the Horned Frogs or the Baylor Bears are virtually assured of garnering a spot in the four team playoff.
3. Any Big 12 team with at least 10 wins will be invited to play in a New Year’s Day bowl. This is an assumption, not a fact. The Playoff committee will fill the 8 slots on New Year’s Day (Fiesta, Cotton, Peach, and Orange Bowls) from a wide pool of teams, including:'”
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[*]The conference champions of the Big 12, SEC, Pac 12, Big 10, and ACC automatically earn an invites (if they are not one of the four playoff teams).
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[*]The highest-ranked (by the playoff poll) champion among the Mountain West, American, Conference USA, Sun Belt or MAC conferences will earn one spot.​
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[*]​​Any remaining slots are filled directly by rank-order from the final poll done by the committee.
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4. In order to have a predictable pattern of outcomes, this model assumes that downstream Big 12 bowl affiliates select only based on conference standings. While it’s known this is not true, it is necessary to make a choice, and this is the most logical one.
As stated last week, the “top-down†factor will determine the Longhorns’ and all other downstream bowl destinations. Think of the bowl selection hierarchy like a domino chain…until the first domino is pushed over, the rest of the chain is meaningless. How the following teams finish their seasons and how they stack up in the final playoff poll will have a direct impact on which bowl game Texas plays in:
Alabama versus Missouri in the SEC championship game
Oregon versus Arizona in the Pac 12 championship game
FSU versus Georgia Tech in the ACC Championship game
Ohio State versus Wisconsin in the Big 10 championship game
The key question after this exercise is: Which factors play the biggest role in determining the Longhorns’ bowl destination?
1. A combination of assumptions #2 & #3
Without knowing which teams will be placed in the playoff and NYD bowls, it’s not possible to project which bowl will invite the Horns. Specifically, whether TCU, Baylor and Kansas are tabbed for a playoff spot or a NYD bowl directly impacts Texas. Additionally, how the other conference championship games finish will impact those three teams’ outcomes, so those games indirectly affect the Longhorns as well.
2. Assumption #4
Does the Russell Athletic Bowl select their team based on conference standings, or anticipated ticket sales? What about the Texas bowl?
