Here’s the deal on the bowl game.  We win next Saturday and end up going…awesome.

Reality, we don’t deserve to go to a bowl.  Our best win is FIU.  We beat nobody else in top half of conference and got blown out in the meaningful non conference games.

Let’s call it a failure and move on to next year.  Worst part is sending Motor off without a bowl game.  I can’t explain how disgusted I feel about that.

Pretty much…

I do like our win against ODU though…they were very inconsistent (as we were), but at least they beat VA Tech and UNT…

But do they really look at who you beat or how in order to get to 6 wins?  Isn’t it mostly about ratings?  If that’s the case you’d have to think the Kiffin draw is more than what USM could bring to the table on a random weeknight.  That being said, we should have found a way to get at least 1 more win.  

Has nothing to do with how many wins you have. All to do with ratings. 

That said, get to 6 wins and see what happens. 

We have a higher rating than UNT (SOS driven)…we lost to them.

As you said, let's see what happens…

My money is on ACC losses, or we'll be home for the Holidays.

As one of the earlier posts mentioned the bowls with CUSA tie-ins can pick whoever they want - and it seems like they typically try to pick teams that help them with name recognition AND more importantly the ability to sell tickets more than they do simply using records.  That makes me think we still have a decent shot at the Boca Bowl if we can beat Charlotte.

Man - who would have ever thought we would say a sentence like that last one?!?!?!

After last night, SB Nation has us in the Hawaii Bowl again with UAB going to the Birmingham Bowl taking an unfilled bid from another conference. Thoughts????????

FWIW, SI has us (all 8 potential CUSA bowl eligible teams actually) in a bowl game.  They have us playing in the Bahamas Bowl.  

Bowl Projections: Week 12 predictions for CFP picture, schedule | SI.com

Also FWIW, the league office just sent out the same release on the number of bowl agreements - verbatim… 

They appear to be on an island with the figures! So, I am abandoning that ship

Here it is though:

C-USA has six primary bowl selections in 2018: the Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl, Hawai’i Bowl (Honolulu, Hawai’i), Makers Wanted Bahamas Bowl (Nassau, Bahamas), New Mexico Bowl (Albuquerque, N.M.), and R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, along with either the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl (Tampa Bay, Fla.) or the SERVPRO First Responder Bowl (Dallas, Texas). The league has a secondary agreement with the Walk-On’s Independence Bowl (Shreveport, La.), should the ACC or SEC not be able to fill its spot in that game and a secondary agreement with the DXL Frisco Bowl (Frisco, Texas).

I could be wrong, but my quick research shows we have basically 2 paths to a bowl (assuming we win Saturday of course).

1.  Wake Forest and FSU lose, leaving the ACC with 9 bowl eligible teams for 10 bowls.  Although I'm unclear on what happens if 1 wins…with Clemson and ND in the playoffs, that may change the equation…anyone know?

2.  The American currently has 6 bowl eligible teams and 7 bowls.  Again, I'm unclear about this, but if UCF gets an At-Large bid to the playoffs or New Year's Six bowl, and a loss by SMU (at Tulsa) or Tulane (hosting Army), then they would have an extra bowl they can't fill and CUSA fills either Independence or Frisco bowls if the American is short on teams.

I think both of these scenarios is why most of the bowl projections have all 8 CUSA bowl eligible teams (should FAU and USM win) in bowl games.