BOWL PROJECTIONS: Iowa vs. Alabama?

Major sports Web sites have bowl projections out, and they vary considerably. They also depend on lots of events that are unlikely to all come true.

But they're fun.

CBS Sports' projections say it will be Iowa against Alabama in the Capital One Bowl. That matchup would ease the sorrow of missing a BCS bowl, even if it is in the dumpy Citrus Bowl in theme park-riddled Orlando.

College Football News, whose bowl projections are used by Fox Sports' Web site, also pegs an Iowa-Alabama matchup. In the Outback Bowl. CFN is picking an Ohio State-Florida Capital One Bowl.

How the Capital One would take Florida over Alabama is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, but it's all guesswork at this point. CFN also has Oregon playing in the Rose Bowl instead of the BCS Championship Game, which means it sees the Ducks losing one of its three remaining regular-season games, either at California, at home against Arizona, or at Oregon State.

Uh huh.

Mark Schlabach and Andrea Adelson of ESPN.com have Iowa in the Outback. (Borrring.) Adelson has the Hawkeyes playing Arkansas. Couldn't the two just save a lot of fossil fuel and play the game in the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis? Schlabach is forecasting a third Iowa-Florida Outback Bowl. The Hawkeyes only face the Gators in non-Tebow years.

Adam Rittenberg of ESPN.com simply pegs Iowa in the Outback against, of course, an SEC team. He has MSU losing at Penn State on Nov. 27 and falling to the Capital One, with Ohio State going to either the Fiesta, Sugar or Orange, and Wisconsin heading to the Rose.

Me, I'm not convinced Michigan State wins at Penn State, either. I have a hard time envisioning Michigan beating Wisconsin in Ann Arbor on Nov. 20. Which means I think Wisconsin has a chance to share the Big Ten title with the Iowa/Ohio State winner, and proceed to the Rose Bowl. If Penn State cooperates.

If MSU does lose to Penn State (it sure isn't losing its other game, at home Nov. 20 against Purdue), the Ohio State-Iowa winner has a good chance to go to either the Sugar or Orange bowl. The Fiesta probably wouldn't get the chance.

New Orleans is the last frontier for Hawkeye fans. New Orleans is the one place that wouldn't flinch at an Iowa invasion. They've seen it all down there. Visitors come and go, in twos and fours and tens of thousands. They always go home wobbly as the city endures.