By Dave Miller, National Football Post
We will officially find out the entire college football bowl slate Sunday evening, but in the meantime let’s take a look at the hypothetical BCS matchups for the 2012-13 bowl season.
Projections subject to change
Notes
The champions of specific conferences are contractually committed to certain bowls — unless they are No. 1 or No. 2 in the final BCS standings…
ACC = Orange; Big Ten = Rose; Big 12 = Fiesta; Pac-12 = Rose; SEC = Sugar
If a bowl loses a host team to the title game, then the bowl gets first choice at a replacement team. The rest of the selection order for 2012-13 is: Fiesta, Sugar and Orange.
Jan. 1 Rose: Wisconsin (Big Ten) vs. Stanford (Pac-12)
Jan. 1 Orange: Florida State (ACC) vs. Northern Illinois (at-large)
Jan. 2 Sugar: Florida (SEC) vs. Louisville (at-large)
Jan. 3 Fiesta: Kansas State (Big 12) vs. Oregon (at-large)
Jan. 7 BCS national championship (Miami): Notre Dame (BCS No. 1) vs. Alabama (BCS No. 2)
Northern Illinois fans should be excited because I think the Orange Bowl will end up with NIU with the final selection. The Huskies, however, have to end up in the Top 16 of the final BCS standings to make it into the dance. They moved up two spots to No. 16 in the latest USA Today Coaches' Poll, but the final computers may not like NIU because of its weak schedule. We shall see tonight.
Email dave.miller@nationalfootballpost.com or follow me on Twitter at Miller_Dave