Texas Bowl
Looks Like Texas Bowl for Cowboys
STILLWATER – Everything fell the way the Big 12 needed it to fall on Conference Championship Saturday. The night before, Oregon dumped Utah in the Pac-12 Championship and Oklahoma and Baylor staged an overtime battle in Arlington further convincing the CFP Committee that the Big 12 was ultra competitive this season and deserving of the fourth and final spot in the College Football Playoff.
The Sooners will likely get LSU in Atlanta or Ohio State in Glendale, Ariz. in the semifinal. Baylor with possibly the emergence of freshman Jacob Zeno at quarterback will get Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. All of that likely leaves #25-Oklahoma State with a trip down to Houston to see either Texas A&M or Mississippi State.
Okay, good for the other four Big 12 bowl teams that both OU and Baylor stay up top. That is also good for the Big 12 coffers too. Money, money, money.
The Alamo Bowl picks first and will have Utah out of the Pac-12, so if the folks in San Antonio want a ranked match-up then they could pick Oklahoma State to play the Utes. I do think the Cowboys second most likely destination is the Alamo, but I believe they will opt for Kansas State and get the purple hoard of travelers in the Alamo City. Get those tourist dollars for San Antonio.
Next up Orlando, and I really wanted, like a lot of other Oklahoma State fans, to go to Florida and play Notre Dame, but the Irish will get Texas. Those two programs look to relive their illustrious pasts since the present is not so great. That is as locked down a match-up now as the semifinalist for the CFP. Book it Texas and Notre Dame in Orlando.
That leaves Oklahoma State returning to the Texas Bowl for the first time since Les Miles broke through and the Cowboys beat Southern Miss in the 2002 then Houston Bowl. It is now the Academy Sports and Outdoors Texas Bowl and Academy is a sponsor of Oklahoma State athletics. That will play well. Both sources at Oklahoma State and Texas A&M say the likely match-up is former Big 12 foes. That would be good! Good match-up, good for recruiting, and good for travel for Oklahoma State fans and player’s families.
The game will kickoff at 5:45 p.m. on Dec. 27 in NRG Stadium in Houston.
The other option if the SEC is a stick in the mud, you see they pick where their teams go, not the bowls after the top tier. There is belief it could be Mississippi State and that would be a rematch in the same stadium of the 2013 Texas Bowl Advocare Kickoff Classic. I’d rather see Aggies maroon in Houston.
Iowa State gets a trip back to Memphis for the Liberty Bowl.
