CUSA bowl tie-ins get first pick of CUSA’s teams, so only teams not slotted in those bowls could be picked up. That’s why 7-5 is a nice sweet spot, not enough to get picked up by CUSA bowls this year but attractive enough to Belk Bowl “if” and only if, the SEC does not have enough available teams.
If I were to bet though I think the Bahamas Bowl will want us. It’s our first bowl so more of our fan base would want to go than say…WKU for example and we have an international airport with direct flights to Nassau.
I suppose that is a good point from a loser’s point of view. Just kidding. That was pure ass. Still, I have a hard time looking ahead toward taking any future comfort in losing.
Don’t underestimate Mike Hill’s ability to lobby the local committee for a spot. There’s a reason he lives in uptown and spends a ton of time with the movers and shakers in town. It’s to capitalize on that goodwill in the community when a potential opportunity like this presents itself. We still have to win one more, and other chips have to fall our way, but I guarantee you we have Hill advocating behind the scenes for us to get into Belk. A huge part of his job is sales and he’s selling like crazy on our potential to turn out a huge crowd for that game. If we are so lucky, we have an obligation to not make him look like a fool and put 30k in BOA wearing green, minimum.
Once we get there, honestly, the result is secondary. Just going to ANY bowl is a new height for our program, and building on that is what we hired Healy to do.
All, College Football is a business… The Belk bowl pays a hell of a lot more per team than the Bahamas Bowl or the Birmingham Bowl, millions vs hundreds of thousands. We are still young and building out our facilities, we need cash, that is why we took the money and ran down 85S to Clemson to get “experience”. Win Lose or Tie, get as much cash as possible, outside of the playoff’s , that is what it’s all about, reward the kids with a trip, some swag and the school gets some cash.