Notre Dame Bowl Projections: How Will Win or Loss At USC Impact Postseason?

The 2010 Notre Dame football campaign has seen it's twists and turns. Expectations have risen and fallen, and Bowl projections have been anywhere from a BCS berth to home for the holidays.

With the Irish's 27-3 thumping of Army in the Bronx Saturday night at least one thing is finally clear- that the Irish will be bowl bound.

Trying to figure out exactly to which bowl is a little more problematic.

Since the last Irish bowl trip, and since they have been a bowl regular, the landscape has changed. To begin to be a bowl prognosticator, you must first understand how aligned the bowls have become.

Way back in the ancient times before the BCS was created (a decade ago) bowl committees selected many of the teams from the field of eligible teams. Match-ups were created, teams were chosen based upon their history, fan base, and/or season's prosperity.

Since the advent of the term "automatic qualifier" and the rank-and-file BCS Conference format, the lower bowls have fallen in line.

Every bowl has at least one contractual conference tie-in. Many have contingency plans to pull in teams from a second, sometimes third conference if their primary conference is unable to fill it's commitments.

How this impacts Notre Dame is that the Irish are not involved in any of these contingency plans.

The Big East, who the Irish are aligned with, have also seen a bit of an erosion of stature with the loss of the Gator Bowl as a potential destination.

To make matters worse for Notre Dame the new Big East agreement stipulates that if Notre Dame does not qualify for a BCS berth it can only replace a Big East team in their 2nd bowl (Champs Sports Bowl) once every four years and only if they are within one win of the Big East school holding the #2 conference spot.

Notre Dame is eligible for selection ahead of any Big East school if Notre Dame has at least 7 wins.

Outside of those games, Notre Dame will enter the "at large" pool with every other Bowl Eligible team not automatically assigned to a slot. These teams can only earn bids to games that could not be filled by their contracted conferences.

This year, a lot is riding on Notre Dame's final game.

A seven-win Irish team could be selected ahead of conference teams within their contractual structure as long as no eligible team is bumped to include the Irish.

Most simply should the Irish knock off the Trojans this weekend they will play the 3rd ACC selection in the Champs Sports Bowl.

Should the Irish lose to USC, the picture becomes cloudier.

Should the BCS remain similar to it's current standing there will be an opening in the Big Ten created by Ohio State's inclusion as well as one in either the WAC or Mountain West as Boise State or TCU will certainly be invited.

The SEC and PAC 10 are also likely to send an additional team to the BCS as long as Oregon and Auburn win out and end up in the Championship game leaving two more slots.

The SEC could fill it's empties from within as both Georgia and Tennessee could achieve eligibility by winning their last game.

The Pac 10 is certain to leave one spot open as with 6 slots to fill only 3 teams are eligible and two are possible should they win out. If Stanford is invited to the Rose Bowl and Oregon to the Championship game, the Pac 10 could leave 3 open slots.

Record also comes into play for Notre Dame considering that no 6 win team can be selected if a 7 win team is remaining at large.

Luckily for Notre Dame there are few teams that could reach 7 wins not already slotted to play in a bowl.

The most likely landing spots for the Irish are the Big East bowls.

Beat USC and it will be the Champs Sports Bowl December 28th at the Florida Citrus Bowl. The most probable opponents would be Florida State or North Carolina State from the ACC.

Lose to USC, and the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium against the #7 Big 12 team or the Beef O'Brady's Bowl at Tropicana Field against a Conference USA opponent.

There is also the possibility of the Little Caesars Bowl at Ford Field in Detroit against Temple or Northern Illinois.

It is possible that both slots in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl at SBC Park in San Francisco could be vacant if Boise State enters the BCS and either Idaho or Louisiana Tech fail to qualify.

The Sun Bowl in El Paso and Maaco Bowl in Las Vegas could also remain vacant if Washington beats California and loses to Washington State while UCLA loses either of it's final two games at Arizona State and USC.

Should Cal defeat Washington the Bears will fill the Sun Bowl slot, and the Huskies are out. UCLA must win out to attain eligibility.

If every other conference team gets extremely lucky, there are also the GoDaddy.com Bowl in Mobile, AL against the MAC first choice and the BBVA Compass Bowl in Birmingham AL against the 5th Big East selection.

Notre Dame's at-large competition for inclusion in one of these games is still to-be-determined as several are teetering on the brink of eligibility.

Again, if the Irish can win in Los Angeles Saturday, they will be the first team selected.

If they do not, they are behind Navy (8-3), Miami of Ohio (7-4), Toledo (7-4) and potentially Army (6-5) should they upset Navy.

Along with Notre Dame in the eligible but not assigned are potentially Texas, Colorado, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana Monroe, Idaho, and Western Michigan.

As of now there are 9 open slots with as many as 14 teams eligible to fill them.