Cougars must play the waiting game
PULLMAN – The executive director of the Hawaii Bowl said Monday the Cougars’ bowl fate almost certainly won’t be made known until the rest of the Pac-10 football season plays out, meaning Washington State will be waiting into December to discover its destiny.
“We get the sixth pick so depending on how the conference records wind up, it’s difficult to determine,” said Jim Donovan, the top official for the Dec. 24 bowl game.
But the decision as to which team to take – assuming there is a tie in the conference standings, which is a virtual guarantee based on the current situation – is not Donovan’s alone.
The Hawaii Bowl is owned by ESPN and Donovan said the network’s input, along with the thoughts of the Pac-10 office, will factor into the decision.
The University of Hawaii has already accepted an invitation to stay home for the bowl season and play whichever Pac-10 team gets the invitation.
“We’ll let all the dust settle after the games finish and we’ll start taking a look at what our options are,” Donovan said. “We’ve had pretty good matchups, so that’s probably our No. 1 criteria. Our No. 2 criteria in this case is going to be working with the Pac-10 office.”
Although there is a scenario where WSU could end up in a bowl higher up on the Pac-10 ladder than the Hawaii Bowl, it is highly unlikely.
The best-case situation for the Cougars is probably an Arizona win over Arizona State this weekend, followed by a UCLA loss to USC on Dec. 2. If that happens, WSU would probably end up in head-to-head competition with UCLA for the Hawaii Bowl bid, with both teams 6-6.
That would seem to favor UCLA, even though WSU won in Pasadena this season, since the Bruins are probably a bigger draw nationally.
An informal poll on a Honolulu newspaper’s Web site showed that locally, UCLA is a big favorite as a potential bowl opponent for Hawaii.
Still, Donovan said the larger television market brought to the table by UCLA might not be decisive if it comes to making that choice.
“I believe that almost any Pac-10 team that comes here will bring ratings points with it,” Donovan said. “I don’t know that we’ve sat down and differentiated. UCLA is in a big market, no question, but the Pac-10 itself is a huge market. So I don’t know how much that will be a factor.”
The league office could end up helping the Cougars get into the Hawaii Bowl if it can find bowl games for its other eligible teams. But with eight Pac-10 teams at six wins, things could be difficult, especially since bowls with at-large slots are obligated to use them on teams with a record above .500, something the Cougars, and possibly two teams out of the UCLA, Arizona and Arizona State group, can’t claim.
Even if WSU doesn’t end up in Honolulu this year, it’s already scheduled a three-game series with Hawaii, including road trips in 2008 and 2011.