TCU Football Destined to go to Alamo Bowl?

Gather 'round, everyone. There's been a lot of chatter about what bowl TCU could possibly end up in. I"m here to tell you. It's probably the Alamo Bowl.

I know, what you're thinking: "Jamie, earlier this week you told us it would be the Russell Athletic Bowl." You're right. I did say that. But that was before the new College Football Playoff Rankings came out. And those rankings, which have TCU sitting at No. 11, and Oklahoma State at No. 17, shed some new light on the situation.

First things first, though, stop talking about the Sugar Bowl.

The Sugar Bowl is not a possibility. At all. Stop saying it is. Stop it. STOP.

The Sugar Bowl has already come out and said they'll go by Big 12 standings and take the No. 2 team in the conference, should Oklahoma make the College Football Playoff.

@tcufrogs83 Correct; if the champ goes to the playoff, the Big 12 will determine its 2nd place team for the Sugar Bowl.

— Allstate Sugar Bowl (@SugarBowlNola) November 29, 2015

So...stop it.

Now, the next bowl that has a Big 12 tie-in is the Valero Alamo Bowl. Once the CFP is set and the New Year's 6 bowls have all had their teams set (there's a sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight chance TCU could get an At-Large bid, but it's highly unlikely. Some really, really insane stuff would have to happen for the Frogs to get an at-large bid. So we'll just say this isn't happening) the Alamo Bowl gets the first chance to select their Big 12 team.

Yes, the Alamo Bowl gets to choose. Read it at the bottom of this article, from their website. If Baylor beats Texas, their pool will be No. 11 TCU and No. 17 Oklahoma State. If Texas beats Baylor, their pool will be No. 11 TCU and No. 12 Baylor.

So, the question then, is which system will the Alamo Bowl go by? CFP Rankings, or Big 12 Standings? I think, like many others, that the Alamo Bowl will want the best-ranked matchup they can get, which would mean selecting No. 11 TCU and No. 16 Oregon. (Again, there's a sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight chance the opponent could be Stanford, but they'd have to lose the Pac-12 Championship badly enough to drop out of the Top 10 and not get an at-large bid to a NY6 bowl). This is simply because TCU is ranked so much higher than Oklahoma State. Six spots is a wide margin, and despite OSU holding the head-to-head win, and being No. 3 in the conference (if Baylor wins), it seems likely that the Alamo Bowl would take TCU.

This could also be credited to the way both teams finished their seasons, with TCU beating No. 7 Baylor, and Oklahoma State getting shelled by Oklahoma.

Of course, there is potential for both teams (TCU and Oregon) to move up in the rankings after Championship Weekend, depending on who loses and by how much, making that matchup even more desirable.

So, with that in mind, it seems like TCU is going to wind up in San Antonio for the Alamo Bowl.

Can you get on board with the Alamo bowl against a 9-3 Oregon squad?

I sure can.