Am I A Bowl Team?

Dude, it's so coming.For decades, Big Ten powerhouses were shut out of the postseason by the league's strict prohibition against such reward for all but the conference champion. Well screeeeewww that! In the 21st Century, everyone gets rewards! Live! On ESPN Classic!

So much so, in fact, it can be difficult to determine just who is and is not going bowling these days. Below is the detailed resume of a Bowl Subdivision program which may or may not have accepted a gracious invitation to a postseason contest. Your challenge, knowledgable reader, is to put yourself to the test: can you tell whether or not the program described below is scheduled for a bowl game, without looking? Give it your best shot, then click 'Read More' to reveal the secret identity of today's contestant. Good luck!
- - -

Am I a conference champion? No. Not even close. I finished three games back of the conference champion in a four-way tie for fifth place. Though I did beat said champ... The other three teams with the same conference record all made bowl games, but two of them had better overall marks.

Was I humiliated on multiple occasions? Yes. Oh god, yes. Two-thirds of my losses were by double digit margins, including getting hammered by 27 points on the road in October by a team that would finish behind me in the standings and, still very much in the conference race, being mercilessly thrashed at home by 45 two weeks later to a supposed equal. I lost to two different teams that finished at least two games below .500.

The high point: Beating the eventual conference champion was sweet, but not as sweet as hanging 60 on my fiercest conference rival for the second time this decade. Of course, I allowed 600 yards total offense in the same game, but victory is victory. No regrets.

The low point: Losing four division games in five weeks is a bummer, man, I can tell you. You don’t ever want to go through that. Turning the ball over four times in one afternoon, blowing a second half lead at home against the division leader, getting outgained by 400 yards on your own field, blowing a three-touchdown lead at halftime to the worst team in the conference...I’ve seen it all, man, and it is not pretty.

Close calls: I opened the season by beating a rival in overtime, in dramatic fashion, coming back from 11 points down in the second half for my first come-from-behind win since, well, since I scored 21 points in the fourth quarter to beat the same team by the same score two years ago. Albeit not in overtime then, so, less drama. FWIW. This was big, because a few weeks later, I downed the second-ranked team in the country – yes, I was one of those; the charter member, actually – by scoring 20 unanswered in the second half, the last three to break a tie on the last play of the game. At the end of the year, in the process of rallying from ten points back in the closing minutes, I was screwed unsuccessful in converting the tying field goal in a devastating upset loss.

So: you have the facts. Am I a bowl team?

AFFIRMATIVE!
If you said "Yes, that is a bowl team," right you are! Colorado defeated archrival Nebraska 65-51 in a winner-take-all season finale to finish 6-6 and secure a bid to the PetroSun Independence Bowl in beautiful mostly nontoxic Shreveport. The Buffaloes will play another 6-6 squad, Alabama, on Dec. 30 in a collision of once-proud teams that combined to lose eight of their last ten regular season games.

That's Division I football, brother!