Wanted to change the pace a little bit and talk a little about the national scene in college football.  This all comes back to KU and how good of a bowl game they will play in when the season is all said and done.

On ESPN.com right now, and every week, Mark Schlabach and Bruce Feldman offer their bowl projections for the end of the season.  Of course, anyone should take these with a grain of salt, because November is really the time when bowls are decided or not.  That being said, I want to point out the flaws that come with the bowl system in college football. 

Disclaimer:  I'm in favor of an experiment with the top 4 BCS teams playing a 2 game playoff to determine the national champion.  Further, keeping the traditional bowls for the rest of the country to play leading up to that playoff.  The bowls are fun and allow teams with good sesason to have a "postseason" of sorts.  If this worked well, than it might be possible to expand to 6 teams (top 2 get a bye) or 8.  That discussion is a great one but comes for another day.

For now, I want to discuss the bowl projections for this week and why it doesn't seem right to me.  This weeks projections are

Bruce Feldman: Brut Sun Bowl (Big 12 vs. Pac 10): Kansas vs. California

Mark Schlabach: Velero Alamo Bowl (Big 10 vs. Big 12): Northwestern vs. Kansas

In this season, where the Big 12 is very very good, I think I could be happy with the Sun Bowl.  Historically, it's been a pretty good bowl.  Playing Cal? Ehhhh, well the Pac-10 is down right now and Cal is in 5th in that conference.  I don't think they'll stay there with games against UCLA and USC left.  Not terrible, but I'd much rather be playing a tough SEC team.  Overall, though, I think it would be an Ok challenge.  I would compare them to Nebraska in the Big 12.

Schlabach's Alamo Bowl projection is a little less flattering.  Northwestern!?!  I think he has a little too high of an opinion of the Big 10 because he has Penn State in the title game playing Texas.  My personal opinion is that the Big 10 is not good at all right now, if Penn St. ends up beating Ohio St. this weekend then my opinion might change a little more of them....back to Northwestern.  I think of it as a slap in the face to think that our Bowl game test would be against Northwestern.  In the polls, NW is ranked at #22 right now (a joke) while compiling a very unimpressive resume:

Syracuse (W), @ Duke (W, 24-20, that Duke home-field advantage must have contributed there), S. Illinois (W), Ohio (W), #23 Mich St. (L), Purdue (W).

The pollsters validity should be questioned as NW has failed to play anyone except Mich St., whom they lost to.  This shouldn't be seen as a knock on NW.  I applaud them for compiling a 6-1 record to this point and they will play in a bowl game which is great.  The fact of the matter is, though, that if KU were to get matched up in a bowl game against this team, we would tear them apart.  I would put any Big 12 team up against NW and probably take the Big 12 team at a neutral site (Iowa St. and A&M included). 

Here in lies the problem.  The traditional conference vs. conference bowl games are outdated and should no longer be applied.

Let's say KU ends up with a 9-3 or 8-4 final record.  That would probably include 3 or 4 losses to end of the season top 25 teams.  I think everyone would agree that the Big 12 and SEC are the 2 best conferences in football.  So why not match-up the good teams with the other good teams in bowl games?  Ku could go against an up and coming Vanderbilt squad, a team with a great defense like South Carolina, or a traditional power with some tough losses like Auburn.  Or, how cool would a rematch at a neutral site with South Florida be?

I will stop there as this is all hear-say at this point.  I'll say once more, I realize that these projections won't hold up by season end.  But the fact that these two "experts" feel this is where we are now and who we deserve to play is where the system is flawed.  Now that KU is a good team in a great league, I want to see us play quality competiton at all chances.  

If one game is the reward for the work a team has put in over an entire, brutal Big 12 season, then the last thing I want that reward to be is a pounding of Northwestern.