Chris Dufresne of the Los Angeles Times is one of the best and most-entertaining college football writers around. Conventional wisdom has the Fiesta Bowl’s first pick going to either Iowa or Penn State of the Big 10. Dufresne thinks something quite different will occur if the favorites — Florida, Texas and Georgia Tech — prevail [...]

It isn’t set in stone, but the Big Ten’s bowl lineup for 2010 and beyond appears to be this: 1. Rose/BCS, 2. Capital One, 3. Outback, 4/5 (alternating) Gator and Insight, 6. Texas, 7. Motor City. Bravo on upgrading the Insight. Phoenix is a fine bowl site, and it’s a game against a Big 12 [...]

But hello Holiday Bowl? This link from Bud Withers of the Seattle Times says the Alamo Bowl is making a major play — to the tune of $3 million per team — for a top team out of the Pac-10. The Alamo’s deal with the Big Ten expires after this season.

Let the Big Ten know what you think it should do with its bowl lineup. The conference is locked into deals with the Rose Bowl (BCS) through 2013 and the Insight Bowl through 2014. Everything else is open after this year. The current pecking order is: 1. Rose, 2. Capital One, 3. Outback, 4. Alamo, [...]

Bowl affiliations will almost surely change to some degree, and soon. Lots of contracts between bowls and conferences expire after this season. Bud Withers of the Seattle Times reported today (click here for story) that the Pacific-10 Conference is in talks with the Alamo Bowl, which has been a matchup of Big Ten and Big [...]

The bowl schedule for the coming college football season is set, with dates, times, football networks, and for all I know, lousy halftime entertainment. To cut-and-paste the lineup, click here. Incredibly, the 34 bowls are the very same 34 as last season. The St. Petersburg B owl has survived. So has the New Mexico Bowl [...]

The Big Ten has lost its last six Bowl Championship Series games by an average score of 17.3 points. The Big Ten is 6-16 in bowl games over the same three-year period. The league won only one bowl last year in Iowa’s 31-10 thrashing of South Carolina in the Outback Bowl. Big Ten Commissioner Jim [...]

CHICAGO — The Big Ten’s future bowl lineup could receive a radical — or reserved — makeover this week when league officials, administrators and football coaches conduct their annual meetings. Five of the league’s seven contracted bowls are up for renewal following the 2009 season. League officials plan to discuss each bowl this week, and Big Ten [...]

In 2006, the Iowa-Texas game posted the best TV ratings of any non-BCS bowl game that season. It was a Saturday night contest and posted a bowl-record 5.99 rating for ESPN, less than 1 full point behind the Orange Bowl that season.

As far as prestige goes, this is probably a good thing for the Big Ten. The Alamo Bowl announced Monday that it will now kick off on January 2. This year’s game will begin at 8 p.m. on ESPN, in a clear and open TV slot with no competition from any other college bowl games [...]