After a tumultuous NCAA football season, the official BCS bowl pairings will be announced on ESPN at 6 p.m. PST Sunday evening. Despite the Arizona State Sun Devils finishing the season with a 6-6 record and 4-5 in Pac-12 play, their six regular season wins render them bowl eligible and they will figure to be selected for one of the bowl games that are set to feature a Pac-12 representative.
The other Pac-12 teams that are bowl eligible are the Oregon Ducks (who clinched a Rose Bowl berth by winning Friday night's inaugural Pac-12 Championship Game), the Stanford Cardinal, the Washington Huskies, the California Golden Bears, the Utah Utes and the UCLA Bruins, who received an NCAA waiver to make them bowl eligible despite their ultimate 6-7 losing record.
The Pac-12 bowl partners will make their selections in the following order:
- Valero Alamo Bowl (vs. Big 12, December 29 in San Antonio)
- Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl (vs. Big 12, December 28 in San Diego)
- Hyundai Sun Bowl (vs. ACC, December 31 in El Paso)
- MAAACO Las Vegas Bowl (vs. Mountain West, December 22 in Las Vegas)
- Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl (vs. at-large team, December 31 in San Francisco)
- Gildan New Mexico Bowl (vs. Mountain West, December 17 in Albuquerque)
Stanford is expected to gain an at-large selection, most likely to the Fiesta Bowl. Washington, Cal and Utah all finished with matching 7-5 records, but the Huskies set themselves apart with wins over both Cal and Utah during the regular season. That leaves Arizona State and UCLA looking at the final two Pac-12 bowl selections.
ASU would appear to be the more popular pick, by virtue of not finishing the season with a losing record. If that ends up being the case, they would be headed to the Las Vegas bowl. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out tomorrow night, but it would be a bit of a surprise if UCLA was picked over the Sun Devils.
For all news and information related to the Sun Devils, please visit House of Sparky. Click here for the 2011 College Football Bowl Schedule.