Cincinnati wound up third in the BCS standings and the Bearcats came within a second of playing in the national championship game. If Texas doesn’t get that extra second to kick the game winning field goal in the Big-12 title game against Nebraska, it could have been a Cincinnati/Alabama match up in the national championship game.
"The win over Pittsburgh obviously allowed us to still sleep well," Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly told ESPN Sunday night. "But it still would have been nice to play for a national championship.
"I think under the circumstances they got it right," Kelly said of the Alabama/Texas match up in the title game. "I felt all along that if Texas didn’t win, the strength of our schedule having beaten three Top-25 teams really would put us out there. That didn’t happen, so I think they got the two teams that should be playing for the national championship."
Cincinnati will face 12-1 Florida in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s night. It will be Cincinnati’s second consecutive appearance in the BCS after the Bearcats lost to Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl last season.
Back to back last second losses to WVU and Cincinnati has Pitt settling for the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte. The game will be played at 4:30 on Dec. 26. Pitt will face North Carolina, a team that lost 31-30 to the Mountaineers in this bowl last year. Pitt will be playing in this bowl for the second time as the Panthers lost to Virginia 23-16 back in 2003.
The inclusion of Pitt in this bowl was a bit suprising as bowl officials had their sites set on Rutgers believing the Scarlett Knights would bring more fans. Back in 2003, Pitt sold just 3,000 of its allotted 12,000 tickets. But when the Chick-fil-A Bowl took Virginia Tech as expected and the Gator Bowl officially selected Florida State, Miami fell to the Champs Sports Bowl with the A-C-C #4 pick and them Clemson fell to the Music City Bowl with the #5 pick. That allowed the Car Care Bowl to select North Carolina again and the Tarheels wanted a game against a higher ranked Pitt team. The University of North Carolina has agreed to help Pitt sell a portion of its ticket allotment this year.
So it is Rutgers who has the unenviable task of preparing to play a game in two weeks in St. Petersburg Dec. 19 right. That date falls right in the middle of final exams. 8-4 Rutgers will take on an 8-4 Central Florida team.
“I didn’t see this coming, so, to be frank, I don’t have a schedule yet (for the next two weeks),” Schiano said on Sunday.
It will be the fifth consecutive bowl appearance for a Rutgers program that made a total of one appearance in the first 130 years of the program. Still, Schiano was dismayed that his team fell to the bottom of the league’s six spot pecking order.
“Quite frankly, it is disappointing,” Schiano said.
The coach is also disappointed that his team won’t get the extra practice time the other teams will get who play later in the bowl season.
The match up of 7-5 UConn and 7-5 South Carolina has a chance to be a very good game. The Huskies clinched a spot in that bowl by beating South Florida 29-27 Saturday night when Dave Teggart’s 42-yard field goal on the final play of the game. Teggart was a roommate of slain UConn player Jasper Howard. After Howard’s death, Connecticut lost three consecutive close games before rebounding to win three in a row over Notre Dame, Syracuse and South Florida to close the season. UConn’s five losses came by a total of five points.
South Carolina, meanwhile, suffered losses to Alabama, Florida and Tennessee. The Gamecocks beat Ole Miss when the Rebels were ranked No.4 in the country.
It will be the first match up between Connecticut and South Carolina in football.
South Florida’s typical late season swoon has landed the Bulls in the Jan. 2 International Bowl in Toronto against Northern Illinois. South Florida is the only BCS conference team to begin 5-0 in each of the past five seasons. But the Bulls lost five of their last seven. Still, they will make a fifth consecutive bowl appearance. The Big East is 3-0 in Toronto with Cincinnati , UConn and Rutgers all beating MAC teams in the bowl.