(Written by kencraw)

If I remember correctly, part of what got us all so excited about adding the Alamo bowl was that it was moving to be a January 2nd bowl, the 2nd most prestigious day for a bowl game after New Year’s day. But in our first two years of playing it, it’s been on the very over-crowded days of December 29th and and December 31st. I know a big reason for that is that New Year’s day has been over the weekend, making a mess of scheduling (you don’t want your Jan. 2nd games on Sunday due to the NFL and the Jan. 1st games move to Jan. 2nd when the 1st in on a Sunday, bumping the Jan. 2nd games elsewhere whenever the 1st is on either Saturday or Sunday) for the last couple years… but I’m beginning to wonder if we got a far less appealing game than we thought. After all, the TicketCity bowl (former Cotton bowl) snuck in with the Jan. 1st bowls (the 2nd this year), even though they’ve got a much weaker lineup (#5 Big-10 vs. Conference-USA winner).

I was going to say “As a reminder, the Pac-12 is one of the only BCS conferences without a 2nd new year’s day bowl” but it looks like the landscape has changed. Of the 4 non-BCS game New Year’s Day bowls (Jan 2nd. this year), ALL FOUR of them will have a representative from the Big-10. Three of the 4 will match up against the SEC and one will match up against Conference-USA (what the?). In past years, the Big-12, Big East and ACC have all had one of those slots. Looks like they get to join the Pac-12 in weak bowl land.

But that’s ridiculous, the 5th place team (6th if they ever get 2 in the BCS games) in the Big-10 will be playing on New Year’s Day. This year they’ve got a log-jam of five 10-2 or 9-3 teams, so it won’t be too bad, but in most years, it’ll be a pretty weak team playing on the same day as the Granddaddy of them all.