Rest assured, Buckeyes fans, I have no inside information regarding your team's postseason fate. The one thing I do know is that the Fiesta committee won't even hold its first formal meeting to discuss possible scenarios until Monday. And while this may come as a shock to some of you, it's going to be an awfully difficult decision for them.
First of all, as I've maintained for weeks, it's by no means set in stone that the Fiesta folks would take Notre Dame with their first pick. Penn State is every bit as attractive to them, in which case, the Buckeyes would have to hope the Orange wants them more than Notre Dame. Not likely. (Direct your e-mails to them, please, I'm just the messenger). If it does come down to an Oregon-OSU choice to face the Irish, there are any number of pros and cons to both.
It's no secret ABC would prefer the glamour of an OSU-Notre Dame matchup, but, contrary to popular perception, the network doesn't hold much sway in the process (if it did, do you really think we would have had a Utah-Pittsburgh game last year?). The bowl is going to do what's in its own best interest. Obviously, the game is played in a Pac-10 stadium, and there's a certain sense of loyalty to that conference, which, as you may recall, lost a second BCS berth (Cal) at the 11th hour last year. On the other hand, there are a huge amount of Midwest/Big Ten transplants in Phoenix who would eat up an ND-OSU game. Both schools have traveled well to the game in the past, so that factor probably won't come into play as much as usual. Neither will any number of irrelevant factors e-mailers have deluged me with like schedule strength, higher BCS ranking, etc. This isn't the national-title game or an NCAA tournament berth, people, it's a bowl bid. If these things went by merit, TCU wouldn't be playing in the Houston Bowl.
But don't take it from me. After reading your e-mails, I asked Fiesta Bowl media relations director and loyal Mailbag reader Shawn Schoeffler to give us an update. "We haven't made any decisions -- we really haven't," he said. "We're going to eat our turkey on Thanksgiving like everyone else, watch the rest of the regular-season games and make our decision on Dec. 4."