Bowl eligibility.

That phrase shouldn’t excite the fan base of any halfway
decent college football program. Unless you haven’t
sniffed that phrase in three years.

The Arizona State Sun Devils reached bowl eligibility for
the first time since 2007 with their 48-14 win over
Colorado on Saturday night, meaning fans of the fork can
start speculating on where they may be spending a few days
during December or January if they choose to travel with
the team.

How does the Alamo City strike you?

The Pac-12’s top team still has an automatic bid to the
Rose Bowl, even though the conference’s invitation pecking
order has changed for the 2011 season. Unless, of course,
the Pac-12 champion qualifies for the BCS Championship
Game.

I believe that will be the situation–Stanford will win
its remaining four regular season games at Oregon State
and home versus Oregon, California and Notre Dame, before
beating Arizona State (sorry, Sun Devil fans) in the Pac-
12 Championship Game.

That will be enough to send the Cardinal to New Orleans to
take on Alabama in the BCS Championship on January 9th.

The Rose Bowl will then take Oregon, who should finish
with one conference loss (at Stanford on November 12th).

And that brings us to Arizona State, who will have the
third Pac-12 bowl slot, which this year is the Alamo Bowl
in San Antonio against the 3rd team from the Big 12.
Please refrain from your jokes, there are still at least
three teams that haven’t bolted from the Big 12…yet.

The Sun Devils likely opponent, at this point, is the
Texas A&M Aggies. The Aggies, at least according to my
projections, will be the fourth place team in the Big 12,
but Oklahoma and Oklahoma State should both garner BCS
bowl spots and Texas, the 3rd-place team, could be headed
to the Cotton Bowl.

Here’s what some nationwide experts have projected for
ASU’s postseason…

Jerry Palm, CBS Sports – vs. Texas A&M in
the Alamo Bowl

Mark Schlabach, ESPN – vs. Texas in Alamo
Bowl

Brad Edwards, ESPN – vs. Texas A&M in
Alamo Bowl

Erick Smith, USA Today – vs. Texas A&M in
Alamo Bowl

Phil Steele, Philsteele.com – vs. Texas
in Alamo Bowl

Scout.com – vs. Missouri in Alamo Bowl

And here’s what I’m projecting for other Pac-12 teams…

• BCS Championship Game – 1/9 @ New Orleans –
Stanford vs. Alabama

• Rose Bowl – 1/2 @ Pasadena, CA – Oregon vs.
Nebraska

• Sun Bowl – 12/31 @ El Paso, TX – Washington vs.
Florida State

• Holiday Bowl – 12/28 @ San Diego, CA – Utah vs.
Baylor

• MAACO Las Vegas Bowl – 12/22 @ Las Vegas, NV –
California vs. TCU

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