Breaking down the bowl scenarios

With the Big Ten season over, it's time to figure out how the bowl scenarios will play out. Northwestern's bowl game will be determined by several factors: their overall record and place in the Big 10 standings, the placement of Ohio State in a BCS bowl game, past attendance at bowl games, likely number of fans drawn, the current astrological status of former planet Pluto, and the Austrian succession.


The machinations of Frederick II are a minor, but important addition to the
byzantine BCS rankings. Here he is playing the flute, an activity that reportedly
enraged Frederick I; the psychological effects would later cause great pain for
residents of Silesia and the University of Texas Longhorns.


How does the bowl picture become so cloudy? A BYCTOM exclusive takes a look in depth.

HOW A BOWL BECOMES A LAW

The bowl selection process involves a shadowy cabal of bowl representatives, titans of industry, deposed heads of states that no longer exist, and underwhelming Batman villain King Tut.


The bowl selection committees
include a Holy Roman Emperor, an
Avignon Pope, a King of Sardinia,
and a White Raja of Sarawak

Bowl selection committee meetings are often rife with treachery, double-dealing, and international intrigue as different schools campaign briskly through mailings, courtiers, assassins, and feminine wiles. For example, the 1999 Independence Bowl selection involved at least three poisonings and retinue of grape-wielding harlots on the part of Ole Miss. Each bowl is tied to a conference pairing, with Notre Dame involved as a wildcard. Notre Dame can go to any bowl it chooses, appearing in 1995 in the Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Carquest Bowl, the Copper Bowl, and the not-yet-existent galleryfurniture.com bowl by bending time and space through the use of arcane papal magic. As early as 1875, Notre Dame managed to get their mediocre Strong-Man Decathlon Team through to the post-season despite their underwhelming performance in the events of triangular weight-lifting, single-strap unitard mending, bicyclemanship, and fisticuffs.


Adam Weishaupt, early important figure
in the Sun Bowl selection committee.

After the meetings, bloodshed, and bastard pregnancies are cleared away, the bowl committees reveal their picks on national television, while simultaneously giving instructions to their worldwide operatives. The bowls attempt to find attractive conference match-ups while simultaneously winding their tentacles tighter around world governments and international organizations.


The Motor City Bowl announces its 2006 Central Michigan-
Middle Tennessee State matchup to a jubliant crowd


WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR NORTHWESTERN

Because of Oregon's win over Oregon State, Ohio State will likely get an invitation to a BCS game via a complex system of alliances. That means that everyone in the Big 10 moves up a slot, leaving a competition between Northwestern and Iowa for the Outback Bowl, a postapocalyptic death race through the Australian Outback.


Paul Posluszny on the sidelines of the 2007
Outback Bowl

The lobbying between Northwestern and Iowa has been fierce. Northwestern president Henry Bienen sleeps under the watch of his personal guard of crack musket-men. The Iowan leader plans to ward off assaults using a variety of oblong rocks. Northwestern will be touting its superior record, its head-to-head defeat of Iowa at Kinnick, and its clenched-tooth plutocrat alumni base while Iowa will be arguing for its nomadic Winnebago population, superstar running back Shonn Greene, and the fact that some random lineman every year has long, flowing blond hair and then vanishes into some sort of airbrushed van Valhalla (or even a Vanhalla, if you will) before passing the mantle onto some other Norseman.

As a consolation, the other school will end up at the Alamo Bowl, which pays homage to the glorious victories of General Santa Anna and his invincible armies. The Big Ten representative will have to match up against a high flying Big 12 offense. Northwestern's last trip to the Alamo Bowl was similar to the outcome of the actual Battle of the Alamo, as Northwestern was unable to stop Heisman winner and professional gas station attendant Eric Crouch. Iowa was defeated in the Alamo Bowl in 2006 by Texas, a crucial first step in the plan to end the United States's brutal occupation of the Republic, making Texans finally unafraid to fly the Lone Star flag over virtually every structure in the state.

By any external logic, Northwestern should go to the New Year's Day Outback bowl, but in my expert opinion and a thorough examination of the records of past bowl consistories, the 'Cats will end up in the Alamo Bowl. If Northwestern does not end up in either of these bowls and ends up getting completely screwed, I am making a rallying cry to all NU alumni to drop what they are doing, drop their monocles and canes used for the clearing of rabble, and take part in a massive street riot, demanding justice for this outrage through clenched teeth.