Bowl Game Projections [updated]

[Mikey 16,579]

9 hours ago, TigerTale said:

Does this include Carlton Davis?

No. He disassociated himself from AU football last year.

[AURealist 2,185]

12 hours ago, auburn4ever said:

Maybe Auburn could face Duke.

Possible Auburn vs Duke in the Independence Bowl, but not very likely.   They'll probably opt for having at least one LA/AR/TX team from ACC, SEC, AAC or C-USA.  

[KnightTiger 205]

On ‎11‎/‎19‎/‎2018 at 11:16 AM, AURealist said:

As it stands, Purdue is probably out for us now. 

It's shaping up to be either West Virginia or Texas Tech in Houston.  

Outside chance of vs Pitt in Nashville 

Or in Charlotte vs Virginia or NC State. 

Why is Purdue no longer a possible opponent

[AURealist 2,185]

Just now, KnightTiger said:

Why is Purdue no longer a possible opponent

None of the sites still have them listed as a possibility vs Auburn.  Right now, it looks like Purdue may be in the Pinstripe Bowl vs Syracuse or Duke.

[AURealist 2,185]

This just in...

The very first sighting of what an Auburn fan dreads most of all in Football Bowl Projections:

Saturday, December 22        Birmingham Bowl - Auburn vs Temple

[AURealist 2,185]

USA Today now has Gator Bowl:  Auburn vs Northwestern

[all4AU 379]

5 hours ago, AURealist said:

None of the sites still have them listed as a possibility vs Auburn.  Right now, it looks like Purdue may be in the Pinstripe Bowl vs Syracuse or Duke.

These sights are just a media person’s projection. I think it’s clear we fall below the Citrus Bowl and are in the “Pool of 6” between Gator, Music City, Liberty, Outback, Belk, and Texas - that’s why we’ve seen sports media project between those 6. 

I seriously wonder what conversations Auburn has had with bowl representatives. It’s my understanding the schools and bowls each turn in their top 3 choices to the SEC Office, and the SEC Office mixes and matches the schools with these 6 bowls. 

[AURealist 2,185]

3 minutes ago, all4AU said:

These sights are just a media person’s projection. I think it’s clear we fall below the Citrus Bowl and are in the “Pool of 6” between Gator, Music City, Liberty, Outback, Belk, and Texas - that’s why we’ve seen sports media project between those 6. 

I seriously wonder what conversations Auburn has had with bowl representatives. It’s my understanding the schools and bowls each turn in their top 3 choices to the SEC Office, and the SEC Office mixes and matches the schools with these 6 bowls. 

Oh yeah.  Definitely just projections, but interesting nonetheless.  

I'm just hoping for a good matchup in a good city.  And I want to win. 

SEC seems to try to match us with someone of much lower quality.  And then we lose.  Hate it.

[Auctoritas 2,828]

6 hours ago, AURealist said:

Oh yeah.  Definitely just projections, but interesting nonetheless.  

I'm just hoping for a good matchup in a good city.  And I want to win. 

SEC seems to try to match us with someone of much lower quality.  And then we lose.  Hate it.

Wait - when? You may want to go check that.

Last year, we had the peach bowl against an undefeated UCF who is a phenomenal team. Also, the SEC had no say. That's all CFP committee. 

Year before, against a better than us OU, and again SEC has no say. 

Year before that was against Memphis in Birmingham (ugh) but we beat the crap out of them.

Before that, Wisconsin in the Outback Bowl. Evenly matched - they were ranked 17 and we were 19. We did lose, but not against a subpar team.

2013 was BCS

2012 I am going to say that everyone was drunk and we blacked out so that season never happened and we don't talk about that around here. 

2011 was against UVA in the Chick-fil-A Bowl, and we beat them by 19.

2010 BCSNCG

2009 was against Northwestern in the outback and we won. Good game. It's when I started having respect for NW.

2008 we all got a concussion and amnesia.

2007 was a win vs Clemson in the peach bowl

2006 was a win vs Nebraska in the Cotton Bowl (Pat summerall's last game he called)

 

Anyway. I agree. I want a good matchup in an interesting city against a good opponent and I want to win. But we have had ok success in bowls that are not CFP that the SEC office has a say in. 

[AURealist 2,185]

1 hour ago, Auctoritas said:

Wait - when? You may want to go check that.

Last year, we had the peach bowl against an undefeated UCF who is a phenomenal team. Also, the SEC had no say. That's all CFP committee. 

Year before, against a better than us OU, and again SEC has no say. 

Year before that was against Memphis in Birmingham (ugh) but we beat the crap out of them.

Before that, Wisconsin in the Outback Bowl. Evenly matched - they were ranked 17 and we were 19. We did lose, but not against a subpar team.

2013 was BCS

2012 I am going to say that everyone was drunk and we blacked out so that season never happened and we don't talk about that around here. 

2011 was against UVA in the Chick-fil-A Bowl, and we beat them by 19.

2010 BCSNCG

2009 was against Northwestern in the outback and we won. Good game. It's when I started having respect for NW.

2008 we all got a concussion and amnesia.

2007 was a win vs Clemson in the peach bowl

2006 was a win vs Nebraska in the Cotton Bowl (Pat summerall's last game he called)

 

Anyway. I agree. I want a good matchup in an interesting city against a good opponent and I want to win. But we have had ok success in bowls that are not CFP that the SEC office has a say in. 

You are, of course, absolutely correct. Can't fault the SEC for any of it. 

'Emotional perception' on my part. I guess I've always held a higher opinion of the Auburn Tigers than rankings would suggest.  To flesh my thoughts and emotions a bit, it's really in three parts.  

First, I always felt the teams we played when we weren't in contention for the crown in bowls (before CFP) were inferior where a win wouldn't help us in the rankings, but a loss would hurt us.  In the past, I always expected to play an OU or Nebraska, not a Wisconsin or UCF (who is currently overrated in part because they beat us).  It took a while to come to terms with the truth that we are not, and for the most part have never been, an elite top tier program.  That was a hard thing to process and my expectations still lean that way.

Secondly, we've been losing our bowl games lately and I don't like it.  Seems to not bother others much, but losing bowl games has become a habit and I hate it.

Thirdly, - this part may not even be true -  if we don't play well in bowls, we won't be a good bowl draw and that hurts the brand a bit.  We could be more likely to end up in lesser bowls like Birmingham.

Emotional thinking, to be sure.

[Auctoritas 2,828]

2 hours ago, AURealist said:

You are, of course, absolutely correct. Can't fault the SEC for any of it. 

'Emotional perception' on my part. I guess I've always held a higher opinion of the Auburn Tigers than rankings would suggest.  To flesh my thoughts and emotions a bit, it's really in three parts.  

First, I always felt the teams we played when we weren't in contention for the crown in bowls (before CFP) were inferior where a win wouldn't help us in the rankings, but a loss would hurt us.  In the past, I always expected to play an OU or Nebraska, not a Wisconsin or UCF (who is currently overrated in part because they beat us).  It took a while to come to terms with the truth that we are not, and for the most part have never been, an elite top tier program.  That was a hard thing to process and my expectations still lean that way.

Secondly, we've been losing our bowl games lately and I don't like it.  Seems to not bother others much, but losing bowl games has become a habit and I hate it.

Thirdly, - this part may not even be true -  if we don't play well in bowls, we won't be a good bowl draw and that hurts the brand a bit.  We could be more likely to end up in lesser bowls like Birmingham.

Emotional thinking, to be sure.

I disagree with none of this (except maybe the UCF thing. Their QB is the next coming of Drew Brees, IMO. That's a good FBA team and I would hire Josh Huepel in a heartbeat.) 

Solid post.

[auburntiger1987 759]

I cannot agree that we are a bad draw and get bad bowls. I believe we've gotten more than our fair share of decent bowls for our record and part of that at least to me is because we travel well and that means more money and viewers.

2015 at 6-6 we got the bham bowl because we barely became bowl eligible.

2011 at 7-5 go to new years eve bowl

2009 at 7-5 go to Outback Jan 1 bowl even after losing to both uga and bama to finish the season

2007 at 8-5 chick fil a new years eve against #15 Clemson

 

[Linayus 676]

Let's face it - whomever we play, it won't be a match up Auburn fans want. If we have to play a pass happy Big XII team we'll lose. Our best bet is a middling Big Ten or ACC school: Wisconsin/Northwestern (again, ugh) or Pitt/NC State. And I won't even bet on us to win those with our bowl record under Gus.

[auburn4ever 1,266]

Pittsburgh in Nashville.

[AUpreacherman22 3,885]

It doesn’t matter.  

I am so thankful we have Bruce Pearl!  I can enjoy BB season until we have hope in FB.  The next FB game I am looking forward to is the first one not coached by gus.   

[aucanucktiger 1,791]

40 minutes ago, AUpreacherman22 said:

It doesn’t matter.  

I am so thankful we have Bruce Pearl!  I can enjoy BB season until we have hope in FB.  The next FB game I am looking forward to is the first one not coached by gus.   

You had me until the "it doesn't matter" part.

[JDUBB4AU 5,112]

Who cares . If it isn’t the CFP. It means absolutely nothing 

[AURealist 2,185]

Updated OP 

[AUsince72 11,084]

Oklahoma State or West Virginia would be particularly interesting to me, seeing as to how so wouldn't mind AU replacing Gus with either of those coaches.

[GoAU 1,600]

On 11/20/2018 at 12:10 AM, Mikey said:

No. He disassociated himself from AU football last year.

Huh?  Did I miss something?

[gr82be 14,423]

8 hours ago, JDUBB4AU said:

Who cares . If it isn’t the CFP. It means absolutely nothing 

It means more practice which is valuable to the players. The players get some pretty nice gifts and I remember some of them used their gift cards to buy family Christmas presents. Thats a big deal to them I'm sure. I do agree with you that in the big picture the CFP has made bowls meaningless though. 

[PowerOfDixieland 3,226]

I’m afraid playing West Virginia might turn out like trying to wrestle a rattlesnake. Pretty sure Kevin Steele doesn’t want any more of that.  

[JDUBB4AU 5,112]

1 hour ago, gr82be said:

It means more practice which is valuable to the players. The players get some pretty nice gifts and I remember some of them used their gift cards to buy family Christmas presents. Thats a big deal to them I'm sure. I do agree with you that in the big picture the CFP has made bowls meaningless though. 

Nailed it . Much better framed than my statement . I tend to be narrow minded on this stuff . Glad you mentioned those things . 

[Mikey 16,579]

16 hours ago, GoAU said:

Huh?  Did I miss something?

Maybe, maybe not. Carlton Davis elected not to play in the bowl game last season. He went to Atlanta, picked up his sack of goodies all the actual players get, and then went home. To me, that's disassociating himself from Auburn football. Others think it was a perfectly acceptable thing to do. Pick your side and throw rocks!

[AUpreacherman22 3,885]

On 11/22/2018 at 8:19 AM, aucanucktiger said:

You had me until the "it doesn't matter" part.

I’m not sure what you mean by that, but to clarify what I meant in my original post:  I have no preference over which bowl we go to.  Our kids have worked hard and deserve the fun and gifts that come with a bowl game regardless of the location or the opponent.   Also, the extra practice may or may not (depending on coaching moves and the freedom of the new coaches to do their job) help us prepare to be better next year.