It’s that time of year again.  Get excited because it’s bowl season.  Next to the Third Saturday in October, the month long bowl extravaganza is the best time of the year.  While I will not go into my bowl predictions for the entire NCAA, I will however venture into what the SEC Bowl Season might look like.  First of all, the SEC Championship is this weekend and with rumors a flyin’, I believe that the Vols will beat LSU.  I know, call me crazy.  Apparently both Les Miles and Bo Pellini have told their current team that this will be there last game to coach, as both of them will be moving on to other coaching vacancies.  Pellini to the Huskers of Corn and of course Miles to Meechigan.  Overall, the SEC has 10 bowl eligible teams.  Grade school math will conclude that that is too many teams for the amount of bowl ties the SEC has.  So who is in?  Who is out?  Obviously teams such as Georgia, LSU, Tennessee, Florida, Arkansas, Mississippi St., Auburn, and Kentucky have a guaranteed spot but there are still two teams bowl eligible; Alabama and South Carolina, both with 6-6 records.  

It will be very interesting to see what happens, especially with two SEC teams getting a chance to play in BCS games, i.e. the winner of the SEC Championship and most likely #4 Georgia.  If this does happen, then the SEC will not fulfill their 8 bowl ties and either Alabama or South Carolina would likely fill that spot.  So let the debating begin.  Who deserves it?  In my opinion neither do.  Even though I’m a die-hard Alabama fan, I’m realistic.  Losing 4 straight games, including a home game to the Warhawks of Lousiana-Monroe to even your record at only 6-6 really doesn’t cut it for me.  However, with that being said, I would be delighted to go to a bowl for recruiting, for our seniors (well the few that deserve it), and for our fans. 

When comparing the wins and losses of both Alabama and South Carolina there are several differences.  First of all, South Carolina has lost 5 straight games.  However, the Gamecocks have won at Georgia, and home games against Mississippi St. and Kentucky.  Two of these teams, the Tide lost to this season.  Looking at Alabama’s results from this season, we beat Vanderbilt, Tennessee, and Arkansas.  All three of those teams beat South Carolina.  So it is very tough to tell at this point which team would get the nod.  Who knows, with some conferences not being able to fill all of their bowl ties, both Alabama and South Carolina could get bids. 

Anyway, here is what I think the SEC bowl schedule will look like:

Autozone Liberty Bowl:

Alabama vs. Tulsa

Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl

Kentucky vs. Florida St.

PetroSun Independence Bowl

Mississippi St. vs. Colorado

Chick-fil-A Bowl

Auburn vs. Boston College

AT&T Cotton Bowl

Arkansas vs. Kansas

Outback Bowl

LSU vs. Wisconsin

Capital One Bowl

Florida vs. Illinois

Rose Bowl

Georgia vs. USC (Trojans, that is)

AllState Sugar Bowl

Tennessee vs. Hawaii