Big change in likely bowl game teams

Big change in likely bowl game teams - Boise State's loss to TCU throws a wrench into our projected matchups. Rivals 2011 bowl projections. Here are our latest bowl projections for this season. Boise State's loss to TCU opens up a potential BCS slot for Houston, and it also sends Boise tumbling down the bowl pecking order for the second season in a row. Boise was looking good for a Fiesta Bowl spot last week; this week, the Las Vegas Bowl seems likely to be the Broncos' bowl destination for the second season in a row.

In addition, there are numerous 5-5, 4-6, 5-4 and 4-5 teams in major conferences - 20 of them in all - and you can be sure bowl organizers are sweating out whether those teams become bowl-eligible. The reason: As unattractive as it might be to have a 6-6 power-conference team in your bowl, it beats having an also-ran from the MAC or Sun Belt instead.

The SEC has three 5-5 teams and two teams that are 4-6. The Big East has three at 5-5 and one at 4-5. The Big 12 has three at 5-5 and one at 5-4.

Heck, even Conference USA - which has six bowl tie-ins - has three 4-6 teams and one 5-5 squad.

A few notes about these projections:

A few notes about these bowl projections:

There again are 35 bowls, though there have been some name changes.

A bowl's tie-in with a league doesn't necessarily mean it will get the third-, fourth-, fifth-, etc., place team from the league; rather, it means it gets the third, fourth, fifth, etc., selection from that league.

An asterisk denotes a team that will be in the bowl because a league will not be able to fulfill its obligation. In some situations, other conferences have deals to provide teams if the "original" conference can't fill its spots; in those instances, the fill-in conference first fills it own bowl slots. If the fill-in conference doesn't have enough bowl-eligible teams, the bowl then is allowed to pick an at-large team that is bowl eligible.