It’s November. Time to talk bowls.
Just don’t let Illinois coach Lou Tepper hear it.
“The players joke around about it-`Don’t mention the B-word,’ ” cornerback Robert Crumpton said. “You don’t want to get those distractions into what you’re trying to do this week, which is beat Minnesota.”
When it dropped its first three games, Illinois had to figure its only “distractions” in November would be boredom and numb fingers. But after winning four of their first five games in the Big 10, the Illini (4-4 overall) are on course to make their sixth straight postseason appearance.
Just don’t tell Tepper. Asked what Illinois has to do to go to the Rose Bowl, Tepper said, “We have to beat Minnesota.”
Right, coach. But to be honest, the Illini need to do a lot more than beat the Golden Gophers (4-4, 3-2) if they’re going to win the conference. Illinois is tied for second place with Indiana and Wisconsin, a game behind unbeaten Ohio State.
The Illini need to win the rest of their games-Minnesota, at Penn State and Wisconsin-and Ohio State needs to lose two of its last three. And Indiana also has to lose again.
A tie in the standings with any of the other contenders doesn’t help Illinois, because it will have fewer overall victories, and that is the Big 10’s second tiebreaker.
Is that confusing enough? The picture becomes even muddier if the Illini slip somewhere. If they finish 6-5, they’d have enough victories to qualify for a backup bowl, but it probably won’t be one of the three connected with the Big 10.
The Florida Citrus Bowl is committed to taking the Big 10 runner-up, but only if it has eight victories. Illinois won’t.
The Holiday Bowl traded its eight-victory requirement for a guarantee of ticket sales. It will take the third-place team, but Illinois went there last year.
The Hall of Fame Bowl may take the Big 10’s fourth-place team, but it also may bypass it and go with a lower finisher.
Illinois may wind up elsewhere. Athletic Director Ron Guenther, a master salesman, has been pitching the team to the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio. The Alamo wants to match the third-place Southwest Conference team against the fourth-place Pac-10 team, but the SWC’s No. 3 team might not have the six victories over Division I-A teams required for bowl participation.
There’s also the Freedom Bowl in Anaheim, which will pit the Pac-10’s third-place team against an at-large selection. The problem there, Guenther said, is that the bowl’s minimum $750,000 payout might not cover the cost of taking the team and an official party to the West Coast during the holidays.
Illinois might not know where it stands until the early morning hours of Sunday, Dec. 5. That’s when Wisconsin and Michigan State wrap up the season in Tokyo.
“The whole (conference bowl picture) could be put on hold until after that game,” said Mark Rudner, the Big 10’s assistant commissioner. “We’ve talked about that, and there’s a good chance it could happen.”
With so many possible scenarios, maybe it’s a good thing Tepper doesn’t want his players worrying about the bowls.
“My girlfriend and I, at the beginning of the year, we try to look at the schedule (and say): `We know we can beat this one, this one and this one. All we have to do is beat this one and we’re in Pasadena,’ ” Crumpton said. “But it never works out like that.”
