The Tom Bowl
2007 bowl bids announced
If the regular season is a playoff, and the teams that make the playoffs are determined by their final standings, then the choice for who should play in Tom Bowl XIX was an easy one.
At least that was the opinion of Tom Bowl in picking undefeated Hawaii to play once-defeated Kansas and Ohio State in the 19th Tom Bowl.
“Hawaii didn’t lose a game all year and Kansas and Ohio State each lost once,” Tom Bowl President Tom Cantrell said redundantly. “Since those three had the best record, those are the teams that should play.”
The Tom Bowl returns to the popular in their opinion three way contest that will see each team play each other for a half with the winner being the team that scores the most points overall.
Michigan became the second team to go from a Tom Bowl to a Dan Bowl. The Wolverines actually qualified for the Dan Bowl after the season’s opening week when they lost to Appalachian State to drop from #5 to unranked. Louisville started the season ranked 10th only to finish the season on the outside of the top 25.
"We've had our eye on Michigan since the start of the season," Cantrell said. "Louisville not as long."
The Burst Bubble Bowl’s first choice was easy in picking Iowa who went from playing in a mid-tier bowl to no bowl at all after losing their finale against Western Michigan while South Carolina managed to beat highly ranked Georgia but was still relegated to the sidelines when the bowl bids were handed out. Both teams finished 6-6.
"Both of those teams had their bubble's burst," Cantrell said. "Especially Iowa. Who loses to Western with all that on the line?"
The Boot Bowl is a classic as Kansas State and Miami qualified in style by both losing their last four games in a row to narrowly avoid becoming bowl eligible. The only other team considered for this slot was Arizona and they really weren’t considered. This ended the streak of Big 10 teams playing in the Boot Bowl at three.
"Now that doesn't matter at all," Cantrell said noting that he's made that same point every year for the past four years.
The Toilet Bowl had many options. Duke, as always, was in the running but they beat a 6-6 Northwestern team which disqualified the Blue Devils from consideration. Minnesota was a strong contender and actually had fans lobbying for their inclusion as they only managed to beat a mediocre Miami-OH team in overtime. However, in the end there really was no choice as Idaho only managed to beat Cal-Poly and SMU’s lone win was against a 2-10 North Texas team.
"We really wanted to include Minnesota but couldn't justify it," Cantrell said. "It's not often you get someone lobbying for a toilet bowl."