You sure it's not 10? Sure seems like every year just about every Big 11 team makes it to a bowl game. I thought the Big 11 in 2007 was an absolute joke. Just terrible. One good team (Ohio State's) and a bunch of mediocre to crummy ones. This year? They did better. In my view, aside from the obvious ones (Penn State and Ohio State), Michigan State, Minnesota (props to them for getting to "bowl eligibility this year after a one-win campaign last season, although they finished with four straight losses to end their regular season), Northwestern, and maybe Iowa "deserve" bowl bids (at least in today's watered-down bowl environment). That's six. I know that Indiana, Purdue, Miss-again, and Wisconsin...wait. I just checked the final Big Ten standings for this season and both Minnesota and Wisconsin have enough overall wins to qualify for a bowl game, even though both those teams came in at under .500 in conference play. In my book, I don't care what your overall record is, if you have a sub-.500 conference record by the end of the season, you don't deserve to go to a bowl. Allowing teams like that into bowl games is doing nothing more than rewarding mediocrity. That's all that's doing. But I guess $$$ trumps just about everything else and with all the bowls that exist these days I guess they have to find as many ways to fill them as they can. But if it were up to me I'd give Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan State, Northwestern, and Iowa bowl bids this season, and that's it. But it's not up to me so I guess we'll be seeing Wisconsin and Minnesota in bowl games this season, too. Whatever. I probably won't be watching.
