There were a trio of scouts from the Indianapolis Colts and another from the New York Jets watching from the Rentschler Field press box Saturday afternoon, but the men with the gaudy logos on their jackets were nowhere to be found.

No Car Care Bowl logos. No International Bowl logos. No St. Petersburg Bowl logos. No Papa Johns.com Bowl logos.

That, however, will likely change next week.

The UConn Huskies, the 2009 made-for-TV movie Huskies, made themselves bowl-eligible with a 56-31 win over Syracuse. And its a safe bet that next Saturday night when South Florida comes to the Rent for the regular-season finale, a lot of those men with logos on their jackets will be in the house, looking to woo the Huskies.

This was a great win for us. It makes us bowl-eligible three years in a row now and thats very significant for our program, UConn head coach Randy Edsall said. This season has been real long and real hard, not just on the field but with all the other things that have transpired with this team. Im very proud of them. They never quit and they found a way to get it done.

Without question, UConn is the feel-good story of the college football season. Five losses by a combined 15 points. All the emotion of the devastating loss of junior cornerback Jasper Howard. Beating Notre Dame. It all adds up to great television drama. Now, the nation will get to see it. The only question is where and when?

The good news is we have six contracts with six bowl games and UConn is our sixth bowl-eligible team, said Nick Carparelli, Senior Associate Commissioner for Football and Corporate Sponsorships for the Big East, who was at the game. And there will be a place for UConn to go, provided the Gator Bowl does the right thing and selects a Big East team this year, which we are inclined to think that they will. We have a lot of flexibility in our bowl lineup.

Cincinnati (6-0 league) or Pittsburgh (5-1) will be the Big Easts represenative in the BCS and the loser will likely head to the Gator Bowl … if they do what Carparelli hopes theyll do. Contractually, the Gator Bowl could extend an invitation to Notre Dame, but that would be very unlikely with the Fighting Irish struggling for wins. Assuming the second-place Big East team goes to the Gator Bowl, that would place West Virginia (4-2) in the Meineke Car Care Bowl and leaves the International Bowl, the Papa John s.com Bowl and the St. Petersburg Bowl for Rutgers (3-3), South Florida (3-3) and UConn ( 2-4).

Considering that the Huskies played in the International Bowl last year and because the Big East likes to avoid duplication, it seems that either the Papa John s.com Bowl in Birmingham, Ala., on Jan. 2 or the St. Petersburg Bowl in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Dec. 19 are UConns potential top landing spots.

We try to avoid repeat preformances. Its hard to look at any one school without looking at the collection of Big East schools and where theyve been involved in. Sometimes you get in a situation where its impossible to avoid a repeat, Carparelli said. After our champion gets determined and goes to the BCS and the Gator Bowl makes its selection and the Car Care Bowl makes its selection, then I think that will tell us a lot about the teams that remain to be placed, where they might end up.

One potential problem with the St. Petersburg Bowl is that it would be right in the middle of final exams for the Huskies.

Our schools are well aware of that. I think they all have plans on how theyll work around it because its a part of every contract we do and theyve made appropriate arrangements, Carparelli said. But (if) they decide that they cant pull it off, that may mean they might not go to a bowl game at all. But that would be their decision.

Mark Schabach and Bruce Feldman of ESPNs college football bowl prediction Web site both have the Huskies going to the Papa Johns Bowl against Georgia and South Carolina, respectively, while CollegeFootballNews.com predicts UConn will go back to the International Bowl against Ohio.

We have good bowl partners that have worked well with us in the past. When the seasons over, well talk to our bowl partners and talk to our schools and see what everybodys preferences are and try to make the most sense of it that we can, Caparelli said. But with a week and a half left in the season, theres still so much up in the air. Its tough to predict how its all going to shake out.

Posted on November 30th, 2009 by admin
Filed under: College football news, NCAA college football