Bruins yet to reach past “˜toilet bowl’

 

By Joshua Mason
Daily Bruin Staff

Two days after winning their sixth game of the season, UCLA head
coach Bob Toledo slyly commented that the team had qualified for
the “toilet bowl” and were working their way up.

The comment, meant to be amusing at the time, hints at some
not-so-amusing scenarios for UCLA’s bowl future.

After losing to USC on Saturday, Bruin chances of receiving a
bowl bid deteriorated significantly, because the Trojans clinched a
fifth-place finish in the Pac-10 standings and a future invite to
the Vegas Bowl on Christmas day. The Bruins are now left eyeing a
sixth-place finish at best.

The Pac-10 conference only has partnerships with five bowls,
with the top five conference finishers going to each one. The
Pac-10 champion goes to the Fiesta Bowl, followed by the Holiday,
Sun, Seattle and Las Vegas bowls, in that order.

To complicate things even further, an Arizona State victory over
the Bruins and an Oregon State win against the Ducks on Dec. 1
would leapfrog both teams ahead of UCLA in the conference
standings. That would translate to three bowl-eligible Pac-10 teams
that don’t have guaranteed bowl invitations in December.

To make matters worse, the Bruins would be in eighth place if
all were to work out (or not work out), and would look largely
unattractive to bowls considering at-large teams because of the
increasing fan disappointment (and unwillingness to travel) at the
end of the season.

There still remains a miniscule possibility of UCLA qualifying
for the Vegas Bowl. If the Bruins beat the Sun Devils in two weeks,
Washington beats Miami, and Oregon beats OSU, there might be a
chance for two Pac-10 schools to gain BCS invitations. The most
likely scenario would be if Oregon (currently fourth in the BCS
standings) finished first or second in the final BCS standings and
qualified for the Rose Bowl and Washington gained the second invite
to play in the Fiesta Bowl. That would mean that six Pac-10 schools
would be guaranteed bowl invitations, and a 7-4 UCLA team would be
the sixth.

But if the Bruins were to receive an invite, it would most
likely come from a West Coast bowl contracted with a conference
that doesn’t have enough bowl-eligible teams to fill all
their spots. Potential options include the Silicon Valley Bowl in
San Jose, the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, Idaho, and the
Galleryfurniture.com Bowl in Houston, Texas.