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What if we get to 6-6... and don't go to a bowl game?

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I know this is cart before the horse but let's talk about hypotheticals since this is what we're playing for.

CUSA currently has four bowl-eligible teams (ECU, N.Texas, Rice, Tulane) and two teams with five wins (Marshall, MTSU). I would be surprised if Marshall and MTSU don't both hit 6 wins.

Then UTSA is at 4-5, so they are still in the picture too, though their last four games are Tulane, NT and LaTech. If they lost to Tulane and NT, well, they'd be done obviously.

The only teams that are definitely out of contention are FIU (1-7), UTEP (1-7) and SoMiss (0-8).

So… CUSA has six bowl spots

Liberty Bowl
Beef O'Brady's
Heart of Dallas Bowl
Military Bowl
New Orleans Bowl
Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl

If we finish with 6-6 and the other 6 finish with 7+ wins, we may be left out in the cold anyway unless we somehow get picked up as an at-large option.

How do you like our chances if we manage to finish 6-6 considering the strength of the rest of the conference?
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owl2Doc said

If we finish with 6-6 and the other 6 finish with 7+ wins, we may be left out in the cold anyway unless we somehow get picked up as an at-large option.

How do you like our chances if we manage to finish 6-6 considering the strength of the rest of the conference?
Posted On: Nov 4th 2013, 2:16 PM #320898

I called this out in another thread last week in discussion with Teambeer…it's a very likely possibility we could finish 6-6 and go no where given SOS and our wins.

Then again, someone could argue we are a marketable "story" in coming back while losing two key coaching figures in addition to the game itself.


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I think their is a high probability we do NOT go bowling even if we are bowl eligible...their is no "special" team in C-USA this year record wise and very small chance a team above us moving to a non-C-USA affiliated bowl...but whether we go bowling or not 6-6 would be a great accomplishment forgetting about everything that has happen over the last week....it's pretty impressive improvement from last year and a nice stepping stone for next year who ever the coach is...

I am still hoping the offense explodes after the bye and we become a very exciting team to consider for a bowl berth.

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Well, up until right now, we have a top 20 hardest schedule in NCAA (I "think" that's what Dieter had said), then we have a massive fall off and have the easiest schedule in football these last 3 games, so at the end of the day, it doesn't help us.

A question I just posed to my buddies:
If FAU gets 6 wins, Chun finds a new head coach in the process and we get a bowl bid…is Wright given the reigns to coach the bowl game? Chun couldn't wait until December 21st to announce the hire if it was already agreed upon, he needs the recruiting support. New coach who doesn't coach the team until after the bowl?
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If that were to come about, I think that Wright would deserve the opportunity to bump his resume with a bowl victory.
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Wright would coach the game, yeah. And he'd deserve it at that point.

In fact, it would hurt our performance in any bowl game if Chun announced a new coach before the game is played.

Unfortunately that's the catch-22 of this timing: the sooner you announce the coach, the sooner he can put together a staff and go out to recruit - but - at the same time you hurt your performance in the bowl game because the lame duck coaching staff is demoralized.

It's best to hold off any announcement until after the season is officially over. If Wright thinks he's still auditioning for the part, he's going to put even more emphasis on it. Any new coach that you announce in December may have to finish up a post-season berth with his current team anyway, and then once he gets down here he's going to have about two months to throw together a recruiting class which will be even harder if he isn't going to honor the handful of commits we already have (which would be stupid IMO). So the current recruits could still end up coming here.
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I don't know why I have the feeling that Pelini was holding back Wright. Wright came to FAU highly regarded with his offensive packages at Montana. We complained about him not living up to the expectations, but he has shown adaptation after this guy left.
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UTSA is ineligible to make a bowl this season, as they are an "FBC Transitional" program. The only way they can make a bowl game is if they have more than 6 wins, and there's not enough 6 win teams in the nation to fill all of the bowl tie-ins. This is the same situation that South Alabama was in last year, and that conference mate Old Dominion will be in next year.

It looks like the ACC and MAC will have more bowl eligible programs than they have bowl tie-ins. So who do you think the Military Bowl (Annapolis) or the Independence Bowl (Shreveport) would rather want? Northern Illinois, Ohio, Wake Forest, and Boston College, or 6-6 Florida Atlantic? The only way I see us making a game, is if somehow, someway, the CUSA bid to the Beef O' Brady's Bowl (St. Petersburg) is not filled by ECU, Marshall, Middle, or Tulane (I don't see North Texas or Rice getting a bid to the BoB Bowl). We're going to need the BoB to fall into our lap, or we may be counting down the days until baseball season….. Yes, that means the basketball season will already be over as well.
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What if we get to 6-6 and don't go to a bowl game? We will have had a remarkable turnaround for our season, for one thing. But I think there's a reasonable chance for a bowl. A team that's hot at the end of the season (and has a good story line) can be more attractive than a team that limps in with the same record. In some (many) cases, teams that are roughly equal in record are picked by how many fans they might bring (how close the bowl is to the team's home base, and how well fans travel with the team). In any case, I certainly would not rule it out. But the first order of business, of course, is to win the final three games. And these guys can do it….
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As much I would love to see FAU in a bowl game, I have never thought that a team should be rewarded with a bowl for going 6-6. I love watching bowls, but there are too many of them and people feel snubbed if their mediocre 6-6 team doesn't get an invite. Enough with the sense of entitlement and everyone gets a trophy mentality.

We played 9 regular season games when I was in high school. You had to be minimum 7-2 to make the playoffs. Post-season play meant something.

So, if FAU goes 6-6 and doesn't go bowling, I will not be angry. I will be happy that the Owls were able to turn the season around and finish on a high note and I will look anxiously and optimistically to 2014 and a winning record.

GO OWLS!!!

2017 and 2019 Conference USA Champions
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