Hot-damn. Looks like the stinking creeps at the Outback Bowl, who've made a living trying to screw my Tennessee Vols, have actually done them a favor this year by picking Auburn from the SEC West division (they're supposed to pick the second-place finisher from the East, which is UT this year). What we get for the Vols will likely be a Chick-fil-A Bowl (formerly the Peach Bowl) date with Virginia Tech, a 9-3 team with an excellent national reputation, in Hotlanta.
The Knoxville News Sentinel (and the Atlanta Journal, among others) projects (here) the Chick-fil-A showdown between the teams that are four hours away from each other with a kickoff of 7:30 Dec. 31, New Year's Eve. As a guy who avoids going out on the Eve with a passion, this gives me a great excuse to stay in and be safe from all the amateur drunks on the road.
Tennessee will have a good opportunity to get some serious healing done in the month before the game and should be at the levels of ability that Alabama saw a month ago (and that Alabama almost regretted seeing; it blocked a field goal on the game's last play to win).
Tech finished 9-3 with an easy win over Virginia and Tennessee posted a 7-5 record with its overtime victory over a very good Kentucky team in its finale. UT won four of its last five games. The ACC has some 'splainin' to do about its ineffectiveness against the SEC (think title contenders Clemson's and Georgia Tech's losses this past weekend to mid-level SEC teams South Carolina and Georgia). Tech is capable of rectifying that, but in this household, we're looking at piling on the ACC.
There has been talk for years of a Tennessee-Virgina Tech game at the Bristol International Speedway--before nearly 200,000 fans--but UT has always avoided that regular-season game. This game will be one of the more attractive pairings of the bowl season, I think and the damn Outback will get Auburn vs. either Wisconsin or Northwestern. Woopee. Biggie, huh? You go Outback. Hope the blimp falls on you.
Fletch: Good to hear from you. This one will be fun. My dad played at VT and my brother at UT. My son is a UT grad, as well, and I grew up wearing orange. Fun, fun game and very attractive nationally. The dang Outback Bowl breaks the rules every year, trying to get a Florida team first and an Alabama school second and totally ignoring what the SEC contract says. This bowl dissed Tennessee a few years ago when it was ranked sixth in the nation in favor of Florida, which UT had beaten. We have a history with the bastards. But then, hey, who can wait to see Auburn play either Northwestern or Wisconsin?
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