No two guesses are the same when it comes to reading about bowl projections, at least not for specific bowls.
Every prognostication has all 12 SEC schools with at least six victories bowling, although the league only has 10 tie-ins.
Part of that may be the allure of the SEC, but it also has to do with the reputation of the fan base and how it will follow a team in postseason play.
However, most of the guesses are predicated on Alabama beating Missouri in Saturday's SEC Championship Game, and it should but nothing is guaranteed in the crazy SEC.
Projections have the Arkansas Razorbacks in three different bowls: the Music City, Liberty or Birmingham.
Let's just throw this out there: If the Liberty wants Tennessee and Arkansas ends up in the Music City, then hopefully the Razorbacks brass will never consider the Liberty again.
The Vols would have to fly over Nashville to get to Memphis and the Hogs would have to fly over Memphis to get to Nashville. How is that good for the fans of either school?
It wasn't that long ago the Razorbacks Nation sat through one of the coldest nights in Memphis history to support its team, and now it deserves a little payback.
Yes, the SEC assigns bowls, but bowls can make impassioned pleas.
Obviously no one, fans or team, are going to complain about a return to postseason play, not with all the extra practices and exposure a bowl game allows. Still, some common sense needs to be used by the SEC and the bowls.
Such as how the Razorbacks are, and should be, a long shot for the Independence Bowl in Shreveport. Any time that bowl can get LSU, it needs to do everything it can to get the Tigers, who are 8-4 overall this season but just 4-4 in SEC play. This is not the type of bowl the Tigers are accustomed to, but it is a good one. Any city with a Superior Grill gets a thumbs up on the culinary side.
The Texas Bowl should crawl on its hands and knees and beg to get a Texas A&M-Texas matchup.
There are reportedly two bowls that can take at-large teams because their conference affiliations didn't have enough teams to qualify, the Heart of Texas in Dallas and the Cactus in Tempe, Ariz.
That possibly could help the Sun Belt Conference get a fourth team in a bowl.
Arkansas State should be written in ink for the new bowl in Montgomery, and yes, a couple of the new Sun Belt teams who finished ahead of the Red Wolves have appealed their waiting period. But remember when UCA joined the Southland Conference? It won the league title and couldn't go to the playoffs because it hadn't fulfilled its waiting time. Heck, the Bears aren't officially recognized as conference champs, but they are in Arkansas.
It is just a natural for the Sun Belt to have Louisiana-Lafayette in the New Orleans Bowl and South Alabama in the GoDaddy in Mobile, Ala.
Just as it would seem natural to send Tennessee to Nashville to take on James Franklin and Penn State. Franklin jumped the Vanderbilt ship after last season, his return would not be warm and fuzzy since he then took players with him who he had recruited on Vandy time and money.
South Carolina in the Birmingham Bowl and Florida in the Belk Bowl in Charlotte, N.C., seem a good fit, too.
In the final analysis, who would have thought Arkansas would even be in the conversation four weeks ago? But they are bowl eligible and will be ready, whether it is Memphis or someplace that doesn't fit as well.
On a final postseason note, congratulations to Ouachita Baptist, who may have been eliminated from the NCAA Division II playoffs last Saturday, but had an undefeated regular season.
Sports on 12/02/2014