Big Ten play is done for this week, so lets look at the bowl outlook.

First the standings (from Bigten.org)

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First, we eliminate the non-qualifier teams for bowl games based on already having 7 losses overall. These are Purdue, Minnesota, and Indiana.

So the bowl placement standings (based on overall record w/ conf standings in parenthesis) are:

Wisconsin, 10-1 (6-1), tiebreaker with best BCS ranking

Ohio St, 10-1 (6-1), higher BCS than MSU

Mich St, 10-1 (6-1)

Iowa, 7-4 (4-3)

Penn St, 7-4 (4-3)

Northwestern, 7-4 (3-4)

Michigan, 7-4 (3-4)

Illinois, 6-5 (4-4)

The only remaining question with one week of play left is how many BCS teams the Big Ten is going to get... I'm going to analyze that tomorrow when the BCS standings are released. For this, I'm going to go on the current standings and expect that next week, Wisconsin, Ohio St, Michigan St, & Iowa are going to win (favorites). We'll also assume Illinois will beat Fresno St on the road. That would mean we would have standings that would look like this:

1) Wisconsin, 11-1 (Rose Bowl, BCS autobid as highest BCS team in 3-way tie)

     Ohio St, 11-1 (BCS at-large, Sugar or Orange Bowl)

     Michigan St, 11-1

2) Iowa, 8-4

3) Penn St 7-5

     Michigan 7-5

     Northwestern 7-5

     Illinois, 7-5

For the bowls, I'll go in order of selection:

Capitol One Bowl

First pick after BCS Bowls. MICHIGAN STATE. This one is easy as Michigan St is the co-champ and can't be by-passed by anyother Big Ten teams for this slot. Looking at playing the top SEC that doesn't make a BCS game, so likely LSU, or So Carolina, but if the Cocks get pasted in the SEC championship, Bama may slide in here.

Outback Bowl

Big ten #3. IOWA. Iowa being all alone in 4th place and a good traveling team makes this an easy pick as well. Hawkeyes will play the SEC  3/4/5 team, so probably Arkansas or Alabama.

Gator Bowl

Big Ten #4/5. Probably PENN ST. JoePa factor, they beat us head to head, travelling following is about equal with Michigan or maybe slightly ahead. I'll say Penn St slots above us in bowl selections. The Nittany Lions will play the SEC, probably the #6 team, so Florida or Miss St.

Insight Bowl

Big Ten #4/5. Probably MICHIGAN. When compared with the remaining selections available (NW, Illinois) we win most comparisons that matter to bowl committtees. We won head to head against Illinois, are a more "exciting" team (especially with a record setting  and probable Heisman finalist Denard Robinson), and travel well to warm locations. Tempe ain't Boise so we'll probably do fairly well along with being our first bowl game in 3 years. We'll play the Big 12 #6, right now looking like Kansas St, Baylor, or Texas Tech.

Texas Bowl

Big  Ten #6. ILLINOIS. Illini are a shoo-in over Northwestern now as long as they get to 7 wins, and may be a higher selection at 6 wins. It's another Big 12 opponent, so the lower of the Kansas St / Baylor / Texas Tech triumverate.

Ticket City Bowl

Big Ten #7 NORTHWESTERN. Last remaining slot for a Big Ten team that's bowl eligible (thanks Purdue!). Some confusion here as the Ticketcity Bowl website says that since its the newest bowl it has to defer its selection until all the other established bowls have selected, which by my reading would mean the Little Cesar Bowl gets the last Big Ten eligible team if there's not enough, but I could be wrong as the TCB site also says that the Big Ten is the anchor conference for the first four years... So we'll assume the Big Ten #7 goes here and plays a Big 12 team if they have enough (and it looks like they do), the last of the KSt/Baylor/Tex Tc grouping.

If-I-Have-To Projected Matchups:

Rose Bowl: Wiscy v. TCU or Boise St

Sugar Bowl: LSU v. Ohio St

Capitol One: Mich St v. South Carolina

Gator: Iowa vs. Alabama

Insight: Michigan v. K St

Texas Bowl: Illinois v.  Baylor

TicketCity Bowl: Northwestern v. Texas Tech

I would say if this is the case, Big Ten is favored in Capitol One, Insight, & Texas Bowls, being underdogs in most others. But who cares? We're back in and have a winnable bowl game ahead of us....

Barring major upsets next week, this is pretty static. The only changes would occur if the Big Ten only gets one BCS team (Say Stanford and an undefeated Bosie/TCU get at-larges ahead of Ohio St or Mich St).. that happens and move everybody down one slot with Northwestern going to the Little Cesar Pizza Bowl, meaning we'd end up in the Texas Bowl, which, eh, could do worse considering the Texas Bowl is one day later than the Insight Bowl (Wed vice Tue night), Houston vice Tempe, and 6p kickoff vice 10p.