BCS thoughts

The big news for Badger fans stemming from tonight's bowl shakeout is that we're playing Tennessee in the Outback Bowl. That'll be a good matchup - pretty much like Arkansas last year, only this team has a better passing game. The Vols were the overwhelming preference of Badgercentric votes, who voted cast 11 of 16 votes for Tennessee. More as we move toward the game. Here are the initial reactions from this corner after tonight's announcements.

-I like what Fox did putting cameras with different teams, a la CBS and the Selection Sunday show. Did you see how packed Hawaii's arena was? The enthusiasm was great.

-So we get LSU-Ohio State for the whole ball of wax, eh? You might be expecting whining or a rant from me about now, but you know what? These are the probably the two best we have this year after he regular season ... which says something about the mediocrity of college football this year.

-Or it says something about the excitement and unpredictability of college football. Matt Hayes of the Sporting News is typically highly ignorable; his shtick is to eschew thoughtful analysis in favor of one-liners aimed at filling his Inbox with hate mail (and believe me, I've had several written before hitting delete and not giving him the satisfaction). But he wrote something published on Yahoo last night that was pretty good, read it here. He wrote that USC and Oklahoma should emerge to play for the national title. Can't disagree that those two (or Georgia ... or Virginia Tech) are the most deserving teams at the time, and there should be a playoff, but as is often said, in college football every week is a playoff, and these teams faltered for whatever reason.

-Best thing about the title game matchup: no spread offenses, just real men lining up and trying to beat each other up. I will get off this tangent someday.

-Happy for Kansas getting a BCS bid, but did they deserve it over Missouri? Hell no.

-Michigan gets a January 1 bowl in a year where they lose four games, including one to a Division I-AA team. There is no justice. Unless Tim Tebow scores about seven touchdowns on the Wolverines' sorry-ass defense. If Zach Brown and Tyler Donovan put 37 on these losers, Tebow can.

-Strangely, I feel happy for Illinois, even if their Rose Bowl bid does signal a beast to be reckoned with to our south.

-Best non-January Bowl: Sun Bowl, with South Florida playing Oregon, if Dennis Dixon is playing. Or, as usual, the Holiday Bowl: Arizona State vs. Texas.

-Michigan State gets Boston College (free fallin'!) and Oklahoma State is excited to play Indiana (JUST ASK MIKE GUNDY! HE'S A MAN!). Good for the Hoosiers shaking off their bowl drought in honor of Terry Hoeppner. Poor Penn State, which gets Texas A&M in the Alamo Bowl in what should be a home game for the Aggies.

-By my count Wisconsin beat just three bowl teams this year: Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana. Iowa did not reach a bowl - and didn't deserve to. And Purdue stole Minnesota's coveted spot in the Motor City Bowl - guess those Gopher band geeks will need to make "'07 Beat Miami (OH)" patches for their letter jackets.

-I'm going to take the Heisman poll off the blog tonight, but we got 36 votes. The final: Darren McFadden 14, Tim Tebow 7, Glenn Dorsey 6, Todd Reesing 3, Colt Brennan 2, Chase Daniel 2, Pat White 1, Chris Wells 1. Here's betting Tebow wins, but like this season, anything can happen.