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By Bob Asmussen

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 1:25 PM CDT

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Tell Bob he's off his rocker here

Bob's bowl forecast

The BCS pairings come out in December. We can't wait that long. Each Thursday, News-Gazette college football writer Bob Asmussen will give us his guesses:

BCS CHAMPIONSHIP

TCU vs. Texas

Handling the coin toss: A President Bush. Or Nolan Ryan. Or Lance Armstrong. Somebody with Texas ties. How does this happen? It won't take much. Just three more wins by the Horned Frogs (easy), four more wins by the Longhorns (easier) and a loss each by Alabama (to Auburn) and Florida (to Alabama). The game won't draw the highest ratings ever, but ABC will take it. They ought to just move the thing to San Antonio.

ROSE BOWL

Oregon vs. Ohio State

The Buckeyes bump Iowa, which will lose on Saturday in Columbus. It isn't the game Ohio State wanted to play in this season, but it will set up Terrelle Pryor and pals for a big 2010. The Ducks had a great chance to get into the national title race, but they lost to Stanford. At least they've got their star running back on the team again.

SUGAR BOWL

Alabama vs. Boise State

Oh, boy, Nick Saban is not going to like this pairing. Not after losing to Utah in the same game last year. And not after beating Florida in the SEC title game. But an earlier loss to Auburn will be enough to keep Alabama out of the championship and force a return trip to New Orleans. There aren't many better places to be on New Year's Eve.

FIESTA BOWL

Florida vs. Southern Cal

Some would have picked this as the national title game going into the season. When it loses Texas to the Fiesta Bowl, the folks in Phoenix will jump on Florida, which brings a high profile and one of the most prolific quarterbacks in college football history. It will be interesting to see the Trojans in a bowl game outside of Pasadena. Pete Carroll is earning his money this season.

ORANGE BOWL

Cincinnati vs. Georgia Tech

The folks in Miami just hosted the national title game, so don't feel too sorry for them. This will be the final BCS game for Fox, which is turning over the television rights to ESPN. You know the halftime show will be good and you'll be plenty familiar with the Bearcats having just seen them play against Illinois.

INSIGHT BOWL

Illinois vs. Kansas State

The Boss (not Bruce Springsteen) said "What happens if Illinois wins its final three?" Here's what happens: a trip to Tempe to play the No. 6 pick from the Big 12. How much fun would it be to spend a week in the desert with Bill Snyder? He's got all the personality of that desk you are sitting at, but you've got to admire him coming out of retirement and making Kansas State relevant again.

Comments

Bob:

Such silliness . . .if Northwestern doesn't run up and down the field on us, Cincy will . . .Prolific Offense vs. horrible defense against the spread = 40-point-loss . . . . .

Posted by peterborich on November 11, 2009 at 1:44 PM | Suggest Removal

Bob .....being forever goofy is not jounalism.

Posted by Martin09 on November 11, 2009 at 3:11 PM | Suggest Removal

TCU??...no way

Posted by Camazing5 on November 11, 2009 at 5:03 PM | Suggest Removal

As critical of the coaches as I have been, I too think that if IL wins out, they are a shoe in for a bowl. #1 bowls like hot teams, IL would be on one tear of a streak. #2 they would be eligible. #3 it would create a lot of talk, free advertising. #4 IL fans travel.

Thats about all you got to say.

Posted by on November 11, 2009 at 5:39 PM | Suggest Removal

If the Illini beat NW the Cinci game may have perfect timing all over it. First off Cinci will want to start a rusty QB against a 4-6 BT after thought. The crowd and team might have a turkey hangover looking ahead to Pitt the following week. Part of Illinois' success against OSU has been the fact we have played them the week before the Michigan game. It would be classic Zooker to find a way to beat NW then stun Cinci only to lay an egg against Fresno St.

Posted by Kducey on November 11, 2009 at 5:53 PM | Suggest Removal

Fresno State is a very good team. Winning even two of our remaining three seems unlikely to me, let alone sweeping the rest of our schedule.

Posted by bostonillini on November 11, 2009 at 8:04 PM | Suggest Removal

Seems to me that this was posed as a "what if?" rather than a iron-clad prediction. Why does it seem that way?

Because that's almost exactly how it was worded.

Get a goddamn grip, folks. And don't confuse journalism with whimsical predictions. I'm pretty sure Bob isn't trying to be an investigative reporter with off-the-cuff bowl predictions, nor should he be held to such a standard when doing something like this.

It's not as unrealistic as some of you think, by the way. I don't care that Northwestern and Fresno each have six wins, neither is a good team. I've seen them play. They're not good. If you've seen them play and you think they're good, get your TV fixed. It's showing the wrong games.

Obviously we're worse, but the point is that on our field they're both entirely beatable. We're 4-point favorites against NW and if we beat them and play Cincy respectably, we'll likely be favored against Fresno also. On our turf in December? Yeah, I'm sure they'll love that game.

And Cincy? That's a team begging to be beat. A weird-ass Friday night game, Tony Pike's first game in, like, six weeks, and the most important part: just like when we beat Ohio State in 2007, it feels almost inevitable because they simply are not good enough to finish undefeated. They just aren't.

So I'm definitely not saying we do win our last three. I'm just saying it wouldn't be all that shocking.

Posted by on November 11, 2009 at 10:04 PM | Suggest Removal

LegionofDoom needs to check his language at the door. Surely a college graduate can write with intelligence without the profanity.

Posted by Jam on November 12, 2009 at 3:35 AM | Suggest Removal

Nice work LOD!

Posted by Kducey on November 12, 2009 at 6:45 PM | Suggest Removal

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