With the season finishing its long and winding regular-season road, the bowl projection season in full swing.
If Nate Silver were analyzing the polls, I’d feel much better about the whole business.
But I do side with Chris Low of ESPN, who projects Kentucky headed to the Chick-fil-A in Atlanta, and Tennessee to the Ourtback Bowl.
That’s if the Vols win on Saturday at Commonwealth. If Kentucky wins, those spots could easily reverse. An 8-4 Kentucky could be headed to the Outback, while a 6-6 Tennessee could fall to the Liberty, or even the Independence.
Forget the Papajohns.com and the Liberty Bowls, though a Liberty representative exchanged a warm hand-shake and greeting with Rich Brooks after Kentucky’s big win last night. Both those bowls are played the same day as the UK-U of L basketball game. And the word is the Liberty would love an Arkansas-Houston matchup.
Meanwhile, the Independence is salivating over the possibility of a name team like Georgia, even if the Bulldogs wind up 6-6 with a loss to Georgia Tech on Saturday, or Tennessee.
Click Chris’ link to read his bowl predictions.
John Clay is a sports columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader. A native of Central Kentucky and graduate of UK, he covered UK football for 13 seasons before being promoted to columnist in 2000. Born in Paris, he graduated from George Rogers Clark High School in Winchester in 1977. He lives in Lexington with his wife and two sons. You can e-mail him at johnclay.bloginky.com.
John,
I know all the Bowls have commercial tie-ins, but I’m confused about the Chick-fil-A bowl. I’m fairly young (30s) and remember the Peach Bowl as having some significance. It’s hard for me to believe Georgia would give up the “Peach Bowl” name entirely. Instead I would have expected something like the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl or the Peach Bowl presented by Chick-fil-A.
I know we can all speculate - money, money, money. But do you have any inside or historical knowledge of this change?
Thanks,
Todd
Just for kicks and giggles…say UK beats South Carolina and Mississippi State (which was very do-able), and they knock off Tennessee this weekend. That would’ve put the Cats at 10-2. What bowl would have been in play with that record?
Think the Capital One in Orlando has first pick this year, and Cats would probably have ended up there.