What’s in your wallet?
Well, for Georgia’s football team, it’s probably going to be $4.5 million for playing in the Capital One Bowl on New Year’s Day.
“They definitely appear to be the team that’s in the driver’s seat,” Capital One Bowl executive director Steve Hogan said Monday. “If Alabama finishes the regular season undefeated, I don’t see how they get left out of a BCS bowl, and the same with Florida if they’re 11-1. Obviously if Georgia can beat Georgia Tech and get to 10-2, that’s a heck of a football team.”
The Bulldogs (9-2) could wind up in Orlando even with a loss to Georgia Tech on Nov. 29 because their record would be at least equal to LSU (7-3), which Georgia beat last month in Baton Rouge. LSU plays Ole Miss and Arkansas the next two weeks.
Because Georgia is 11th in the BCS standings and has an outside shot at a BCS bowl should Florida or Alabama lose its last two games, Hogan doesn’t believe the Capital One will be able to announce its SEC participant until after the Dec. 6 league title game.
“It would be great if we could because it’s a late year as far as that title-game weekend and less time for folks to get their travel plans in shape,” he said. “Unless you could get the BCS to release certain teams from contention, then maybe you could do something, but that’s just not going to happen.”
The Big Ten side of the Capital One equation often is decided after the final week of that league’s regular season, but that will not be the case this year. The Big Ten hopes to have two teams in BCS bowls but may not if Oregon State goes to the Rose Bowl as the Pac-10 champ and Southern Cal goes to another BCS bowl as an at-large selection.
Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan State are the teams in the running for the Capital One’s other slot.
Hogan has no qualms about taking the Bulldogs, who began this season ranked No. 1 nationally. His bowl issues 12,000 tickets to each participating school.
“Georgia is one of those programs that is a national brand and has a passionate fan base regardless,” he said. “I think their expectations were tempered more September 27th when they lost to Alabama, and then the Florida game certainly. For some time now, they weren’t looking at getting to Miami.
“I’m not as worried about the fan base as the economy. It’s tough out there right now.”
Odds and ends
CBS officially announced that Georgia-Georgia Tech will have a noon kickoff. ... Receiver A.J. Green is the SEC freshman of the week after collecting five catches for 81 yards and the winning score in Saturday’s 17-13 win at Auburn. Green leads the SEC with 51 catches for 887 yards and seven touchdowns and could be Georgia’s first receiver to lead the league since Brice Hunter in 1994.
David Paschall is a sports writer for the Times Free Press. He started at the Chattanooga Free Press in 1990 and was part of the Times Free Press when the paper started in 1999. David covers University of Georgia football, as well as SEC football recruiting, SEC basketball, Chattanooga Lookouts baseball and other sports stories. He is a Chattanooga native and graduate of the Baylor School and Auburn University. David has received numerous honors for ...
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