FanHouse Bowl Games

Every Monday during college football's endless offseason, The FanHouse Walk will put last week's stories to bed and deliver the essentials to bridge that agonizing space between now and September.

You Can't Be Bad All of the Time -- First-year Tennessee football coach Lane Kiffin has built up a tremendous amount of antagonism this offseason. There's nobody to blame but himself, of course, but sometimes you have to give the Devil his due. For all his transgressions, try not to read too much into the story that Tennessee has been witness to 11 player departures. Wherever possible in college athletics, you want to look out for the best interest of the athletes but healthy, successful coaching transitions at big-time football programs almost require a good dose of roster turnover. Whether he's handled it right is up for debate but the raw numbers themselves should not be an indictment of Kiffin.

Ah, November, that great, daffy season when we all look deep into the eyes of the BCS and run away screaming. Amidst the falling leaves and the damp, icy winds, a fan's fancy turns lightly towards playoffs.

Or maybe not so lightly. Even though somebody other than the Big Ten gets to embrace epic failure in the title game this season, we're still not satisfied. We still have the creeping sense that something will be left unsettled on the field.

Most playoff plans are completely batcakes. Some include too many teams; some include too few; some actually think the bowls are interested in becoming playoff games. (Like anybody can afford to travel to, say, Shreveport, Tempe, and Los Angeles on successive weekends without a 21-day advance purchase.)

I found one plan that comes pretty close to being workable. It comes from Pete Fiutak at College Football News, who made it pretty simple:

8 teams, 6 BCS-league champions, the top ranked non-BCS champion, the top ranked at-large team. America, it's your turn to get what you want.

I have a couple quibbles with that plan, but it's more realistic than any others I've seen. Even Fiutak admits his plan isn't going to happen, though. But why?

What a difference a few weeks makes. Auburn appears content to let their troubled neighbors to the north have the spotlight this week. There's still not a whole lot to report out of Auburn. It does appear that Auburn's two bowl options are the Cotton and the Outback.

A Florida win over Arkansas in the SEC Championship likely means a trip to Tampa and the Outback Bowl to face Penn State. The idea of playing the Nittany Lions again in the Outback Bowl makes me uneasy. For those of you who were at the last one, I bet you're still not completely dry.

An Arkansas win on Saturday means a trip to the Cotton Bowl to face the loser of the Big 12 Championship - either Nebraska or Oklahoma. For some reason a trip to Dallas seems more attractive to me. I'm not sure why. I know it's colder and the attractions are not as nice in Dallas, but the Cotton Bowl still has that allure.

It's hard to believe that the Cotton is not an elite bowl anymore. I'd also rather play Nebraska (more than likely) than Penn State. We've played State recently; it would be nice to face the Cornhuskers...

The Georgia loss continues to haunt Auburn. Networks are reporting today that LSU is set to accept a bid to play in the Rose Bowl against Michigan. Would an 11-1 Auburn team be there instead? It's hard to say. But you would have to think there was the possibility.

LSU has committed to buying 28,000 tickets to the Pasadena game. I imagine Auburn could have matched that effort. I attended the USC game in Los Angeles in 2002 and Auburn had nearly that many in attendance for the season opener. LSU will be the first SEC team to play in the Rose Bowl since the early 1940's. What might have been...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. I took a few days off to recharge the batteries and most importantly put on five additional pounds. From surveying the stories on the internet this weekend, it appears that I wasn't the only one taking some time off. But now I'm back and looking forward to the bowl season and watching with interest the debacle that is Alabama football.

Auburn's bowl options are numerous, but when you peel away the many scenarios it looks like the Tigers are headed to one of two bowls, the Cotton or Outback. Technically, Auburn is still in the running for an at-large BCS birth, but it appears that it will come down to a choice of LSU or Auburn. With LSU ranked in the top five, Auburn will probably get the short end of the stick. That Georgia loss still stings.

The Capital One and Chick-Fil-A Bowls are also possibilities. However, it's unlikely that the Capital One will want a rematch of last year's game with Wisconsin. Auburn has played in the game for three of the past six years. I think it's a mutual agreement on both sides that Auburn not return this season.

Should the Tigers head to the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida, the opponent will be Penn State. If the destination is Dallas and the Cotton Bowl, the opponent will be the loser of this weekend's Big 12 Championship game between Oklahoma and Nebraska.

The bowl match-ups will be announced this Sunday on the Fox Network at 7 p.m. CT.