As I'm sitting here watching Temps giving way to Fiami, I'm thinking of the possibility that OU won't be going to a bowl game unless they beat Kent Friday.  For several years, if a conference that had a tie-in with a didn't have enough bowl-eligible teams to meet the commitment, the bowl would have to pick a 7-win team over 6-win teams in order to fill the spot.  This year, however, the NCAA has finally recognized that bowls are about butts in the seats and eyes watching TV (i.e., money) instead of rewarding teams for having good (or great) seasons.  Now, bowls can pick 6-win teams over 7+ win teams.  This means MAC teams that aren't picked for one of the three tie-in bowls or two secondary bowls could be left out.  It could happen this year.  Although the PAC-10 will be 2-3 teams shy of meeting commitments, other Big Six conferences could more than make up the slack.  The ACC has one more bowl-eligible team than its commitments; the Big Least, the Big 12 and the WAC could each be +2 and the SEC and CUSA each could be +1.

This could put the Cats in a bind if they don't beat Kent Friday.  Fiami and NIU would be guaranteed bowl games.  Temps (8-4) would likely get the third bid because it's in a major TV market.  If the secondary bowls don't come through, 8-4 OU could be left competing with a 6-6 Tennessee, Texas, Texas Tech, Colorado, or even UTEP for a bowl berth.  Guess who would win that.

Beating Kent has even more significance.

I read that too on Rivals.com but, as usual with them, the headline was misleading.  If you add up their prediction regarding the bowl eligible teams for each conference and the indies, they have 71.  There could be others, like maybe Georgia who has to beat GA Tech this week to get to 6 wins.  And if Houston (5-6) beats Texas Tech (6-5) this weekend, CUSA gets another.  The Cats just need to take care of business Friday and they won't have to worry about it.

There are 64 teams who already qualify for a bowl right now and there are 20 more who have not been eliminated.  Some of those play each other so there will be more than 71 in my opinion, probably closer to 75.  Anybody but Sun Belt teams (they have none so far, but will probably end up with 3 or 4 with 6 wins) will be picked above a MAC team so there really are no quarantees at this point in time if we lose.

The rule was 6-5 until they moved to the 12 game schedule. NCAA wanted 7-5 and got it with the cavet that a conference was permitted to fill its tie-ins with a 6-6 team otherwise couldn't use a 6-6. Backup agreements have worked the same way, a backup conference must provide a spare 7 win team. Now backups trigger at 6 wins. That is why the big announcement by the MAC office this year about the backup deal. If the SEC or Big East so much as blink the MAC sends a school to the PapaJohn's Bowl. One of the trends in scheduling has BCS conferences playing FCS schools to become bowl eligible at 6-6 and unless its a special rivalry not playing BCS schools out of conference. That is like the natural unfair advantage BCS schools have in basketball loading up with easy home wins. It makes the SOS of BCS leagues look better than they really are and leads to 8 or 9 bowl eligible teams in a 12 team BCS conference. The MAC is 5 or 6 bowl eligible every year without the scheduling advantages of playing 8 games at home.

I must be confused.  From the title of this thread I thought it was about mh55 and those temples.

Good call.

If we don't beat Kant, we will not (and should not) be in a Bowl game.

Agreed