Saturday upsets muddle KU’s bowl outlook

By Ryan Wood     Dec 2, 2007

All bets are off now.

With No. 1 Missouri and No. 2 West Virginia both losing Saturday, the BCS bowl picture was a complete mess heading into Selection Sunday.

Kansas University (11-1) is right in the thick of it, though it’s highly unlikely the Jayhawks will sneak into the top two and play for the BCS National Championship.

No. 3 Ohio State (11-1) expects to be in the title game. The opponent could be Georgia, could be LSU, could be Virginia Tech : heck, who knows?

Ninth-ranked Oklahoma, winner over Missouri in the Big 12 championship Saturday, will play in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 2 assuming it doesn’t make a miracle leap into the top two. The Sooners’ opponent very well could be Kansas, an intraconference clash Fiesta Bowl officials won’t rule out and a matchup both KU and the Big 12 Conference are OK with.

“I think it’d be spectacular to have a Big 12 event there in the desert,” Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe said during ABC’s telecast of the Oklahoma-Missouri game on Saturday.

But who knows, really? The Rose Bowl expects to have an at-large bid to fill, and the Sugar Bowl could as well, if LSU sneaks into the top two. West Virginia, a 13-9 loser to a mediocre Pittsburgh team Saturday, now is eligible to be taken by any of the BCS bowls. The Mountaineers are automatic qualifiers, having won the Big East Conference.

The BCS selection show starts at 7 p.m. today on Fox (Sunflower Broadband channel 4). If the Jayhawks aren’t picked for one of the BCS bowls – they conceivably could be taken by almost any of them – they could be headed to the Cotton Bowl, the Holiday Bowl or the Gator Bowl.

But at this point, it’s anybody’s guess.

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