Syndication
How bad do you want it, Jayhawk fans? Most Kansas supporters would rather eat glass than root for Missouri. On Saturday, if they have the Jayhawks’ best wishes in mind, they won’t have a choice.
If Missouri beats Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship, and subsequently reaches the National Championship, it will markedly improve the Jayhawks’ shot at a BCS game, according to most bowl projections. Should Missouri lose on Saturday, Ohio State will ascend into the top two of the BCS standings and reach the Championship Game. Oklahoma, obviously, would make the BCS as the Big 12’s representative. This would take away an at-large spot, because Missouri is expected to be a lock regardless of Saturday’s outcome.
If the Sooners are victorious, Illinois, who will likely move into the required top 14 of the BCS standings next week to grab an at-large bid, would likely become the Big 10’s representative in the Rose Bowl and probably shut Kansas out of a $14 million BCS payday, according to projections.
If the Tigers, who opened Sunday evening in Las Vegas as three-point underdogs, avenge their only loss of the season and defeat Oklahoma, the Fiesta Bowl has widely been speculated as the most likely Jayhawk destination.
The final BCS standings and bowl pairings will be announced on at 7 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 2 on Fox.
Some Jayhawk fans are worried about a nightmare scenario where the Cotton Bowl would select home-state and tradition-rich Texas — which could drop Kansas to the Holiday Bowl.
Associate Athletics Director Jim Marchiony said there was no sense worrying about scenarios and that the Athletics Department wanted to watch the process play out. That didn’t, however, prevent them from looking at projections.
“The process is fun to go through,” Marchiony said. “Who is going to go where and all that stuff. Of course we hope to go to a BCS Bowl. That is our number one goal right now.”
Larry Wahl, an Orange Bowl representative, said that despite speculation that Kansas’ most possible BCS destination is the Fiesta Bowl, the Orange Bowl was still considering them.
“There are a lot of schools that we are still considering. KU is in that mix,” Wahl said. “They did everything that was asked of them. They won every game that was asked, except for the last one. They are worthy of their standing, there is no question.”
Wahl said Kansas’ lack of historical success in football would not prevent the Orange Bowl from selecting them — last year the Orange hosted Wake Forest, who does not have a great football history and is a smaller university than Kansas. Wahl said Wake Forest sold out their ticket allotment.
Charlie Fiss, a Cotton Bowl representative, said his game is looking at Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas. Fiss said he didn’t know what would happen this weekend and didn’t know which way his group would vote.
“We’ve done our homework,” Fiss said. “We know Kansas fans will travel great, regardless of whether it is basketball or football. They are top-five — that speaks for itself. We know the fans will follow them.”
Fiss said the Cotton Bowl, which pays $3 million per institution, has been in contact with the Kansas Athletic Department. He declined to specifically address the issue of his bowl possibly taking a three-loss Longhorn squad over the one-loss Jayhawks, saying the group would look at a bevy of factors including record, team strength, fan base, television attractiveness, and more.
Fiss did say Kansas rates high in the fan department: “KU, name the sport, whether is football or basketball, we know they have great fans.”
Kansas has hosted representatives from every BCS Bowl except for the Rose this year. The Cotton and Holiday Bowls also both sent representatives to the KU-MU game on Saturday. The Fiesta Bowl has sent more representatives to Kansas games than any other bowl.
Fiesta Bowl representatives did not immediately return University Daily Kansan phone calls seeking comment for this story.
Marchiony said the Athletics Department was not concerned that a lack of prestige would hurt the football team in bowl selections and said, “we think the process will play out fairly.”
Marchiony said the high rating of the Kansas-Missouri football game on Saturday spoke for itself.
CBSsportsline is projecting Kansas into the Fiesta against Arizona State: “With our prediction of Missouri in the title game, we think Kansas will still be an at-large pick with only one loss, especially if the Fiesta Bowl loses the Big 12 champion. With the Fiesta Bowl’s other selection, it will take the Pac-10 runner up, which will be Arizona State. Illinois could also sneak in here instead of the Sun Devils.”
MSNBC projected the same Jayhawk-Sun Devils matchup. “If Missouri goes to the title game, a one-loss Kansas team will be an attractive at-large choice for the Fiesta.”
In other words, for possibly the first time ever, Jayhawks fans on Saturday will become Tiger fans.