...according to the TampaTribune its looking very likely.

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Victory In Cold Could Bring Sun
By BRETT McMURPHY, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 25, 2007

PITTSBURGH - In the past few days, Sun Bowl selection committee chairman John Folmer said he has heard from several University of South Florida officials.

"Those USF guys are politicking hard," Folmer said Saturday night. "I'm impressed."

And based on USF's 48-37 victory at Pittsburgh on Saturday, Folmer should be returning those calls as early as Tuesday to extend USF an invitation to the Sun Bowl to face either Oregon, Arizona State or California from the Pac-10.

"Our selection committee decided Wednesday to take the Big East's highest-ranked available BCS team," Folmer said.

When today's BCS rankings are released, that should be USF, according to projections by CollegeBCS.com's Jerry Palm.

With No. 20 UConn losing at Big East champion West Virginia 66-21, No. 23 USF should jump UConn and remain ahead of No. 24 Cincinnati, which defeated Syracuse.


rest of article at:
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2007/nov/25/...eges-bulls

One thing that shocks me is that, apparently, the Big East offices are pushing for probably soon to be unranked Connecticut to get into the Tire Bowl over a ranked, and possibly Top 20, Cincinnati team. Now, if you're a BCS conference, why would you want an unranked team to get your #3 bowl over a ranked team!?

Let's see... because the Big East Headquarters is in Rhode Island, which is right next to..........

Connecticut !

I don't think it matters much to the Sun who they get.. neither Cincy or USF is likely to bring tons of fans all the way across the country.. so its just a matter of which is more likely to put the eyes on TV sets.. and that is likely to be a toss up as well. Picking the higher in the BCS is as logical a step as any.

After U get past the gator/sun.. it really doesnt matter too much who gets what.. they are all 750k type bowls.. charlotte may be a touch above the others.. but not a whole lot..

Same is true for us in cusa.. other than Haw.. which all like to avoid.. after the Liberty its all the same.. gmac, papa j., Texas, Nawlins.. throw em in a hat.. and just put closest schools with the closest bowls..

i think most Cincinnati fans would heartily disagree that there is no difference between the bowls in Charlotte and Birmingham.

Charlotte would be versus an ACC opponent (Wake Forest or Florida State appear likely).

Birmingham would be versus Southern Miss who we played about a zillion times during our CUSA years.

Charlotte is on December 29th during Bowl primetime.

Birmingham is on December 22nd during Bowl pre-season.

There's a world of difference.

And using the BCS rating system is bogus, just like the BCS rating system itself. The whole thing smacks of Big East HQ tampering.

I understand it matters to individual fans..rooting for individual schools.. I am talking in the overall scheme of things.. to the public as a whole.. once u get past the 2nd tier of bowls.. 1 mil +....most fans don't see a big dif unless it is your school thats in the mix..

Our local writers seem to agree that USF is going to get the Sun Bowl. Good luck, represent the BE well. Even though we beat you guys head to head I can't argue with your marquee wins at Auburn and vs. WVU. You guys are very deserving of the Sun Bowl.

Well I'm rooting for USF to get the Sun bowl since it not like Uconn will get it.

After seeing all the venom Cinci fans have been sprewing, hopefully karma bites them back.

If the Big East wants to see UC have a decent bowl game attendance, then they might want to seriously think about sending UC to Charlotte.

I can assure you if UC is stuck in Birmingham, don't expect a great bowl attendance. Is it sour grapes? You bet it is.

UC has been there and done that. As I said before, no offense to USM as I am sure a game with them and UC would be a good one, but the Bearcats season deserves a better bowl than that.

bearcatfan Wrote:UC has been there and done that. As I said before, no offense to USM as I am sure a game with them and UC would be a good one, but the Bearcats season deserves a better bowl than that.

To be honest though USF and UCONN deserve better also. It shows that we need better bowls, there is no excuse for our fourth place team playing a 7-5 CUSA team.

Regardless where all of our teams end up (and believe me I'm gonna be upset if USF gets the Sun over UC) I have a feeling that the BE might dominate their bowl games again. 5-0 again? Perhaps.

If Sun picks USF, that would be good choice. USF had a great season and I am sure they will represent the BE well in the SUN. It all comes down to the Tire Bowl between UCONN and Cincy. After all the trashing UC fans been giving to UCONN last few days, karma can be a ***** sometimes.

SF Husky Wrote:If Sun picks USF, that would be good choice. USF had a great season and I am sure they will represent the BE well in the SUN. It all comes down to the Tire Bowl between UCONN and Cincy. After all the trashing UC fans been giving to UCONN last few days, karma can be a ***** sometimes.

Karma has nothing to do with it. I have not seen a whole lot of trashing of UConn by anyone except the WVU football team yesterday. Instead I have seen UC fans lobbying on behalf of their Bearcats and pointing out why UC deserves better than the Pizza Bowl. UConn does as well, but unfortunately, somebody is going to have to go there.

We need one more good bowl, preferably two to but some pressure on our other bowls.

I'm fine with the BCS, Gator/Sun (I want the ND exception out though), Charlotte.

Its the Papajohns/international that sucks. First no one cares about the opponents and Birmingham sucks while Toronto might be a great place, its still in Canada and its cold.

It we could just get one more bowl against say a 5-6 place BCS team for our 4th bowl or a 4-5 place team if it for the third place then bam our bowl lineup will be great.

Personally this is why I would love the BE to invite MEMphis. Memphis plays great basketball and if we split they will cover a huge void in basketball. They have a great fanbase. Also they have the Liberty bowl which could would be a great 3 bowl and maybe even trump the gator/sun as our 2nd bowl.

A bowl lineup like

BCS
Gator/Sun
Liberty
Charlotte
Tampa
International
Papajohns

Would be fantastic for a 9 team Big East. Add in the fact that we could get two BCS bids and it gets better.

bearcatfan Wrote:Karma has nothing to do with it. I have not seen a whole lot of trashing of UConn by anyone except the WVU football team yesterday. Instead I have seen UC fans lobbying on behalf of their Bearcats and pointing out why UC deserves better than the Pizza Bowl. UConn does as well, but unfortunately, somebody is going to have to go there.

No dude, some of your fellow Cincy fans have been downright nasty in trashing UCONN. All I do know is next year's game is at East Hartford and we will see how that plays out.

As for the bowls, the way it stands someone will get screwed. If it is not UCONN in the SUN, I hope USF gets it cause they are a very good team.

SF Husky Wrote:

bearcatfan Wrote:Karma has nothing to do with it. I have not seen a whole lot of trashing of UConn by anyone except the WVU football team yesterday. Instead I have seen UC fans lobbying on behalf of their Bearcats and pointing out why UC deserves better than the Pizza Bowl. UConn does as well, but unfortunately, somebody is going to have to go there.

No dude, some of your fellow Cincy fans have been downright nasty in trashing UCONN. All I do know is next year's game is at East Hartford and we will see how that plays out.

As for the bowls, the way it stands someone will get screwed. If it is not UCONN in the SUN, I hope USF gets it cause they are a very good team.

As CubanBull wrote last week, "somebody is going to be disappointed".

I think each team has a good argument and can stake a claim:

* UCONN is the 2nd place team
* UC beat USF and UCONN
* USF beat WVU and had the conference's biggest OOC victory

Again, fans need to voice their concerns to their athletic departments who can then relay this information to the league offices.

I think we also need to beat the drum louder this offseason about this Notre Dame situation. Our bowl games couldn't be any worse w/o Notre Dame, so outside of the GatorBowl how do they really help us?

Could you imagine if ND was 8-4 and took the Gator Bowl this year? We'd have two 9-3 teams facing MAC and CUSA schools. It's time to sink or swim w/o ND. I'd gauge the interest of the Sun Bowl now that we have a limited partnership with them. If Gator won't take us w/o ND then ask the Sun if they would. I'd also imagine that with the ACC stinking for the last couple years we may be able to steal a bowl from them somewhere.

Well said CyberBull...and about the Gator Bowl...they don't even want a BE team...I get the impression that it's ND or nothing.

We need to cut ties with ND football.

RealDeal Wrote:Could you imagine if ND was 8-4

That's hard to imagine.

RealDeal Wrote:Could you imagine if ND was 8-4 and took the Gator Bowl this year? We'd have two 9-3 teams facing MAC and CUSA schools. It's time to sink or swim w/o ND. I'd gauge the interest of the Sun Bowl now that we have a limited partnership with them. If Gator won't take us w/o ND then ask the Sun if they would. I'd also imagine that with the ACC stinking for the last couple years we may be able to steal a bowl from them somewhere.

I can't even imagine if ND is 7-5 or 8-4 this year and we have 3 BE teams sitting here at 9-3. That would be so ugly with our current bowl lineup. I am hoping the BE office is paying attention cause this could get real ugly in a hurry.

We don't need ND and it is time to cut the ties. If Gator does not want a BE team, then let's cut the ties with them too. It is time for BE to find some new bowl partners. BE needs at least 4-5 good bowls in the lineup and 1 or 2 bad ones.

At this point, we need to split and invite a team that can bring a good bowl with them. We need to get to 9 or 10 members and build up this conference.