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Could Michigan State football still go bowling this season? Many would say no after last week’s season-opening loss to Rutgers but Erick Smith of USA TODAY sees it differently in his latest release of bowl projections.
Smith has the Spartans facing off against the Mountaineers of West Virginia in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl in his latest projections that came out on Tuesday. For those not familliar with the Guaranteed Rate Bowl, it was formerly known as the Cheez-It Bowl the previous two years and once was the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl — which Michigan State won in 2012.
This year’s Guaranteed Rate Bowl’s date is still unknown and is set to take place in Phoenix. West Virginia is 3-2 on the season.
In last week’s projections, Smith had the Spartans playing against Buffalo in the Quick Lane Bowl. So what is puzzling to me is how could MSU move up the bowl pecking order — Guaranteed Rate Bowl is considered a higher ranked Big Ten bowl game than the Quick Lane Bowl — despite losing in embarassing fashion to Rutgers this past Saturday? It doesn’t make sense.
With teams not playing the typical 12 – 13 regular season games, bowl game restrictions have been thrown out the window for this year — which means a team like MSU could still play in the postseason despite a losing record. Of course, there’s still the uncertainity of any lower tier bowl games actually being played this year, with already a handful of bowls announcing they won’t take place. So we have to keep that in mind as well.
Click here to see where Smith has the rest of the Big Ten bowling this season in his complete bowl projections.
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