Friday Reading Room -- Someone out West isn't ruling out Orange Bowl for Hawkeyes

Chris Dufresne of the Los Angeles Times is one of the best and most-entertaining college football writers around.

Conventional wisdom has the Fiesta Bowl's first pick going to either Iowa or Penn State of the Big 10. Dufresne thinks something quite different will occur if the favorites -- Florida, Texas and Georgia Tech -- prevail in Saturday's conference-championship games. His picks:

BCS: Florida-Texas. Rose: Oregon-Ohio State. Fiesta: Texas Christian-Cincinnati. Orange: Iowa-Georgia Tech. Sugar Bowl: Boise State-Alabama. . . .

The Fiesta . . . would not likely pass on Texas Christian. Then the selection order goes: Orange, Fiesta, Sugar.

The Orange then takes Iowa -- it had Cincinnati last year -- to play projected ACC champion Georgia Tech. The Fiesta then has a choice between Boise State or Cincinnati. We're projecting Cincinnati because Texas Christian and Boise State played in last year's Poinsettia Bowl.

The Sugar Bowl then takes Boise State to play Alabama.

That's different. It's been assumed that if the Orange Bowl did get a shot at a Big Ten team, it would grab Penn State. But you'll notice it isn't bowl people making those assumptions, it's guessers all over the nation like you, me, and Dufresne.

Now comes a passage you Hawkeye fans are not going to like. I hesitate to reprint it because I like Dufresne's stuff and hate to see him get the e-mails he'll get (and probably already is getting.) But I catch heat on my own blog, so why should anyone else be spared?

Regarding what could happen if Nebraska upsets Texas in the Big 12 championship:

Texas, with one loss, would drop to claim an at-large pick and Nebraska, as Big 12 champion, would be wed to the Fiesta Bowl.

Alabama (if it loses to Florida) would drop to the Sugar and the final pick would come down to Iowa and Boise State. The Orange Bowl might consider Iowa here for reasons that are unconscionable and, in terms of its long-term interests, cannibalistic.

Yet, BCS bowl reps might feel a responsibility to keep it "in-family" and take a 10-2 Big Ten Conference team.

Taking Iowa over Boise State would be a crime.

Boise State has the nation's No. 1-rated passer in Kellen Moore (38 touchdowns, three interceptions) and No. 2 scoring offense at 44.33 points per game.

Iowa has the nation's No. 61-rated passer in Richard Stanzi (15 touchdowns, 14 interceptions) and the No. 87 scoring offense at 23.08 points per game.

Would Iowa bring more fans to a game than Boise State?

OK, but what about the part about having to watch the game?

A lot of Iowa fans would love it if the Hawkeyes get to play Boise State in January. That would mean the Hawkeyes snared a Fiesta Bowl bid.

Should Iowa get an invitation, it would open four weeks of speculation about how it would do against the high-octane Broncos. I'm thinking 99 percent of all Iowa fans would forecast a Hawkeyes win, and 99 percent of all Boise State fans would predict a second Broncos' Fiesta Bowl triumph in four seasons.

But Boise State would have one built-in advantage if it did get paired with Iowa (or Penn State). The Broncos would have two weeks less of rust.

Boise State finishes its regular-season Saturday with a home game against New Mexico State. Reserved seats ($49) and end zone tickets ($30) are available for the contest, which starts at 12:07 p.m., Iowa time.

New Mexico State is 3-9 and unlikely to stop Boise's offense on any given possession. The Broncos have outscored their foes this season, 532-223. The Aggies of Las Cruces have been outscored, 369-142.

Ugly matchup. Nice tuneup. Iowa's season ended on Nov. 21. Boise State can have a little break after Saturday's rout, then get right back at it on the practice field in a couple weeks. The Hawkeyes will have to reintroduce themselves to each other, especially quarterback Ricky Stanzi, running back Adam Robinson and offensive guard Dace Richardson, who have been injured and out for various lengths of time.

Does that really matter? Uh, yeah. Iowa had seven weeks between its last regular-season game of 2002 and the Orange Bowl against USC. The Trojans finished their season two weeks after the Hawkeyes did.

Sure, USC was loaded and would probably have won had it finished its regular-season on Halloween, but that two-week edge couldn't have hurt. It's one big reason the Big Ten is going to lengthen its season a week next year, so its teams have less layoff time than those of most other leagues.

On to other matters. Some thought it would be a cute idea for Oklahoma to play Arizona in the Sun Bowl, and pit coaches Bob Stoops and Mike Stoops, brothers. It's not happening.

Neither brother wants it, and so the Sun Bowl has ceded to their wishes according to Tim Griffin at his Big 12 blog on ESPN.com.

Those plans apparently won't come together, at least after Sun Bowl executive director John Fulmer said he would accede to their wishes and not stage the game.

"There's a pretty good chance we're going to get Oklahoma on the other end. If that were the case, and coach (Mike) Stoops didn't want to play his brother, we'd honor that," (Sun Bowl executive director John) Fulmer told the Daily Star.

In other bowl news, no one seems to know where Iowa State is headed, but one distinct possibility is the Independence Bowl. Its opponent there could be a football program of renown, the Georgia Bulldogs.

Bill King of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution sees how the Dawgs could tumble down the SEC's bowl chain to Shreveport.

It's not the SEC's bottom bowl - that's in Birmingham - but it's become a postseason destination that draws little enthusiasm from anyone in the conference. Maybe it's because of all those “Weedeater Bowl” jokes during the years when Poulan was the sponsor, or perhaps Shreveport just isn't perceived as a very exciting destination by fans. That's something their tourist bureau folks might need to work on.

Whatever the reason, if the Dogs wind up in the Independence Bowl, chances are UGA will have to eat a bunch of unsold tickets.

I have no idea if the Insight Bowl in Tempe, Ariz., is serious about plucking 6-6 Iowa State ahead of 8-4 Missouri, but some Missourians are agitated about the possibility. Like Gabe DeArmond, the publisher of PowerMizzou.com. Gabe let his fingers fly at the keyboard, but he used facts, not just raw emotion.

Forgive me, Cyclone fans, but Iowa Freaking State? Are you serious? Let's take a look at some numbers:

For an 8-4 team in what was supposed to be a rebuilding year, Missouri drew an average of 64,120 fans to six home games. For a .500 team under a new coach in a year that greatly exceeded expectations, Iowa State drew an average of 46,242 to Jack Trice Stadium. Hell, Iowa State could have sold out every single home game, and still drawn an average of 9,120 fewer fans per game than the Tigers.

Over the last five years, Missouri has averaged 59,630 fans at home. ISU checks in at 47,199. Yeah, you read that right. Missouri's attendance this year was 4,500 above its five year average. Iowa State's was 850 below. . . .

More? I've got it. In the last six years, Missouri has gone to five bowl games. The average attendance for those games has been 53,757. That doesn't include fairly well attended Big 12 championship games in Kansas City and San Antonio. Between 2000 and 2005, Iowa State played in five bowl games. The average attendance was 39,634.

If you run a bowl whose major goal is to put people in the seats, which team are you taking?

And, oh by the way, the last time Missouri played in the Insight Bowl (1998 against West Virginia), the TV ratings were better than the last time Iowa State was there.

Now, I'm sure this comes off as me railing Iowa State. And I'm really not trying to. I've got nothing against the Clones. I think it's phenomenal that they made a bowl game and Paul Rhoads did a hell of a job. And I think those players and coaches and fans absolutely deserve a reward for this season. But they don't deserve a bigger award than Missouri.

One last Cyclone note before I get to the real point of this column, which is shredding the Big 12 Conference. The major reason the Insight Bowl appears infatuated with ISU is that the Cyclones took 20,000 fans the last time they played in the game. That was eight years ago. It also was ISU's first bowl game in 22 years. You think people weren't starving to play in ANY bowl that didn't start with T and end with oilet? I mean, Missouri fans flooded Shreveport, Louisiana in 2003 just because IT WAS A BOWL GAME (Thank the good Lord that seems not to be an option this year, no matter what happens with the Insight Bowl).

Wow. Nobody likes the Independence Bowl.

Then again, the bowls have teams they don't exactly adore. Like Michigan State this year.

Bad enough that the sputtering Spartans are 6-6 and still will probably represent the Big

Ten at either the Alamo or Insight bowls, games that deserve better. But at least 10 MSU football players were present during an altercation at a fraternity potluck in a school residence hall last month,

It's been suggested in East Lansing that the Spartans spurn any bowl offer. One small problem, says this Detroit Free Press story. They have to go if invited.

According to Big Ten associate commissioner Mark Rudner, “Big Ten institutions are bound to participate in bowl games if selected.”

When athletics director Mark Hollis spoke with media members in Chapel Hill, N.C., before and after MSU's ACC/Big Ten Challenge basketball game against North Carolina on Tuesday night, he mentioned the contractual obligation and stated that there were 115 players on the team.

In other words, not going to a bowl because of the possible actions of 10 (or 15 – police are still attempting to determine the identities of five other men who were present) players would punish the other 100 or so that weren't anywhere near the incident at Rather Hall on Nov. 22.

Two MSU players have been dismissed from the squad by coach Mark Dantonio.

The Alamo Bowl is in its last year of its contract with the Big Ten, and may go with a hum-drum 6-6 Minnesota instead of putting up with the Spartans.

ESPN.com's Adam Rittenberg spoke to Alamo Bowl President and CEO Derrick Fox about the MSU situation.

Here's a quote from Fox in that story about the investigation potentially hurting MSU's chances to be selected:

"It's something you certainly factor in. It's really just a matter of trying to find out, 'Is 10 (players) the max? Will 10 actually become six? Will some get reinstated, or will this become 40?' Because then, obviously, it can make an impact on the overall thing."

Oklahoma should root for an Alamo Bowl berth. It will get an opponent it can maul.

Something a little more uplifting: Frito-Lay, which already sponsors the Fiesta Bowl, is also staging a football game for American troops stationed overseas, as this New York Times story details. An excerpt:

The Frito-Lay division of PepsiCo . . . plans to announce on Friday a partnership with the U.S.O. to bring to active military forces serving in the gulf a football game styled after a college bowl game.

The Tostitos “Salute the Troops” Bowl, as the event will be called, will be played at an undisclosed time in an undisclosed location. The vagueness is for security reasons. . . .

All Frito-Lay executives will say is that the game is to be played around the time that other college bowl games are being played. Highlights of the event will be shown on TV during the 2010 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, to be broadcast on Fox on Jan. 4.

The game will be a flag football game with members of the armed forces and former college players. There will be teams composed of troops and players.