Big Ten to get their asses handed to them in the bowls

A quick run down by date:

12/28 Insight.com Bowl Iowa Vs Missouri. Congratulations Iowa, count 'em 6 Big Ten teams are playing on New Years day or in a BCS bowl and you are not one of them. There is nothing to make me think that a team that could not get up for games at the end of the year is going to get up for a lesser bowl. The match up for Iowa is tough too. Missouri loves to pass, pass and pass some more. Iowa's pass rush has disappeared and the secondary has not been all that great (I am looking at you cornerback Micah Hyde, please have Micah Jekyll show up). Gamblor takes Missouri.

12/29 Texas Bowl Illinois Vs Baylor. This game is between two middle of the road teams and could go either way. Baylor is playing in it's first bowl game in 16 years (and we thought the Gophers had it bad). One would think Baylor will be all fired up and play above their abilities, but it does not always work out that way. The Illini boast the 13th ranked rushing attack, but that attack only resulted in 6 wins. Also, the Illini still have Ron Zook as their head coach and that is never good.

1/1 Ticketcity Bowl Northwestern Vs Texas Tech. Is this what was the Cotton Bowl? On the egregious sponsorship scale I put this right behind changing the Citrus Bowl to the Capital One Bowl and ahead of allowing the Galleryfurniture.com to sponsor anything (it is now defunct)*. Is Dan Persa coming back for this one? If not this is a no brainer for Texas Tech. I'll say the Big ten splits the Ticketcity and the Texas Bowl.

At this point, I see the Big Ten being 1-2 at best and 0-3 at worst. Here is where the real asskicking begins:

1/1 Outback Bowl Florida Vs Penn State. Word of advice, never get the blooming onion at Outback. It sounds good but in reality it is too salty and the sauce sucks. Florida is not very good but Penn State is even more mediocre. This one could be a snoozer, don't get up early to watch it. I see Florida winning a low scoring affair.

1/1 Capital One Alabama Vs Michigan State. There are football cliches that get thrown around like "that is why they play the game" or "on any given day." You can throw those right out the window. This one will never be in question for Alabama.

1/1 Gator Bowl Mississippi St Vs Michigan. Michigan has no business being in this bowl. Michigan went 3-5 in the Big Ten and landed in a New Years day bowl. They can thank Iowa for losing their last 3 (Iowa was 4-4 but no one wants a team that gave up on it's season). Those 3 wins were over Indiana, Purdue and Illinois in 3OT. They may have made the Gator Bowl but their defense still sucks. Mississippi St easily takes out the Wolverines.

This where things get better:

1/1 Rose Bowl Wisconsin Vs TCU. Tough game, but I actually like Wisco in this one. They have seemed like a team on a mission. When they were winning close games early QB Scott Tolzien said something along the lines of "You don't want to peak too early." They certainly saved their best football for last. I think that Wisco will wear down TCU's very good defense and come away with the victory.

1/4 Sugar Bowl Ohio St vs Arkansas. I like Ohio State here. The last thing OSU fans want to see is OSU up by less than a TD midway through the 4th quarter and Jim Tressel get all conservative. Arkansas can throw the football and will score. Tressel needs to be uncharacteristically aggressive and go for the jugular. Maybe he should loosen up the neck tie and unbutton the first button to show he means business.

All in all, I have the Big Ten going 3-5, winning the 2 BCS games to save some face. There is not one game that I think will be an easy victory for the Big Ten.

*I just noticed there is the Beef'O'Brady's St. Petersburg Bowl. What the cuss is a Beef'OBrady? This could be worse than Galleryfurniture.com. Further research is needed.