SEC West and Bowl Thoughts for the Bye Week

Some thoughts on the SEC West, this coming weekend and bowls.

Arkansas at Ole Miss - 12:30 PM

The Almond Joys Bowl. The Hawgs are 3-3 with very winnable remaining games vs. Eastern Michigan, Troy and Mississippi State. Those games give them bowl eligibility, but it's the Ole Miss and South Carolina games that decide are they going to the Papa John's/Independence Bowl, or do they have a shot at the Chick-Fil-A Bowl?

For Ole Miss (4-2), the Arkansas game is also enormous. They'll be obvious favorites against Northern Arizona and MSU. But this Saturday is the first of three games in four weeks (Ark, at Auburn and Tennessee) that will go a long way towards deciding if this is a Cotton Bowl team or Liberty Bowl team. If the Rebels can't beat Arkansas at home, they're going no where interesting this December.

Auburn at LSU - 7:30 pm

Auburn should get mauled in this one. If you can't beat Kentucky and Arkansas, how are you going to beat a dramatically more talented LSU team? The problem is...the Cajuns have a deeply flawed team as well. They are beatable. Auburn won't do it with the QB play they got last week, but it's not impossible.

The big swing games for Auburn appear to be Ole Miss and Georgia. Beat both the Rebels and Dawgs, and the Aubies can find themselves in Tampa or Atlanta. Get swept by both, and they'll vacation at the Papa John's Bowl. The LSU game is mostly important because they don't want to face Ole Miss coming off three consecutive SEC loses.

My SEC Bowl forecast right now is:

National Title - Bama
Sugar - Florida
Capital One - LSU
Cotton - Ole Miss
Outback - Kentucky (I'm assuming they beat UT)
Peach - South Carolina
Music City - Georgia
Liberty - Tennessee
Independence - Arkansas
Papa Johns - Auburn

Basically, I think we're going to end up with a bunch of 6 to 8 win teams that are all bunched up and assigned to bowls based on georgraphy and ticket sales opportunities. UK is probably seeded a bit high, but the former CEO of Outback Steakhouse is a UK Grad. He also is a major driving force behind the Outback Bowl's existance.

Where do you think teams end up?

PWD