2011 College Football Predictions: 10 Teams That Will Return To Bowl Season
The next college football bowl season may be a ways off, but for those teams around the country whose seasons ended when the regular season came to a close, December can't come soon enough.
While teams like the Auburn Tigers and the Stanford Cardinal were busy celebrating, and the Oregon Ducks and Wisconsin Badgers went home sulking, half of the college football world could do little else but sit at home and wonder, "What if?"
For some, this may be just the beginning of a bowl drought. For others, it may be the end.
Here, then, are 10 teams that fall into the latter category.
Texas Longhorns
1 of 10
Perhaps no team is in better position to return to the college football post-season in a big way than Texas.
The Longhorns endured a particularly rough year in 2010, just months after losing to Alabama in the BCS National Championship Game at the Rose Bowl.
Coach Mack Brown was forced to fill huge holes left behind by program stalwarts like Earl Thomas and Colt McCoy, the NCAA's all-time winningest quarterback.
With that being the case, UT finished the season 5-7, with lowlights like a blow-out loss to UCLA intermingled with a huge road win at Nebraska.
As such, the 'Horns weren't all that far off from bowl eligibility and should be back in a big way in 2011, with Garrett Gilbert growing into his role at quarterback as a junior and the coaching staff, now without Florida head coach Will Muschamp guiding the defense, still snagging the country's top-ranked recruiting class.
Rice Owls
2 of 10
Rice University may not have quite the profile that Texas does, but its football team should be bowl-bound in 2011, nonetheless.
The Owls have struggled in the past two seasons since head coach David Bailiff led the team to a 10-3 record in 2008, topped off by a win in the Texas Bowl, but their 4-8 record in 2010 represented a noticeable improvement over a dismal 2-10 finish in 2009.
The team's offense shouldn't be an issue, with quarterback Nick Fanuzzi and running back Sam McGuffie, formerly a member of the Michigan Wolverines, piling up yardage. The bigger concern for Bailiff's bunch is the defense, which ranked 114th in the NCAA in points allowed this past season.
The road ahead could be tough for Rice, with nonconference road contests against Texas, Baylor and Northwestern, but the Owls should have a shot at making a lower-tier bowl game if they can make some hay in Conference USA.
Houston Cougars
3 of 10
Teams that miss bowl games are often the victims of injury bugs, which describes quite well the case of the University of Houston.
Like Mack Brown's Longhorns, Kevin Sumlin's Cougars fell to UCLA, but unlike UT, UH lost its top two quarterbacks–Case Keenum and Cotton Turner–in the process.
With its stable of signal callers depleted, Houston went from a top 25 team to one with a 3-6 record over its final nine games, forcing the Cougars into an early end to the 2010 season.
Assuming Sumlin's squad can avoid sustaining catastrophic injuries at key positions in 2011, the Cougs should be back in the hunt for a bowl game come December.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
UCLA Bruins
4 of 10
Outside of their aforementioned Texas Two-Step, the UCLA Bruins enjoyed something of a disappointing season in 2010.
Rick Neuheisel's team won a mere two games in the Pac-10 en route to an overall record of 4-8, due in large part to another year of underwhelming quarterback play from Kevin Prince and Richard Brehaut and uninspired play by the defense.
As a result, Neuheisel embarked on a serious makeover of his coaching staff, replacing Norm Chow with San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator Mike Johnson and reportedly looking to fill a vacancy at defensive coordinator with former Miami Hurricanes head coach Randy Shannon.
Amidst the coaching turnover and the loss of defensive stars Akeem Ayers and Rahim Moore to the NFL, most would expect the UCLA football team to struggle again in 2011.
However, assuming the coaching changes lead to greater cooperation and creativity on the field and that there is some improvement under center, with star freshman Brett Hundley jumping into the mix, the Bruins should challenge for a spot in a bowl game.
Whether that will be enough for Neuheisel to save his job is an entirely different story.
California Golden Bears
5 of 10
UCLA wasn't the only school in the cash-strapped UC system to struggle on the football field in 2010.
Though Cal handled its sister school to the south, 35-7, the Golden Bears had plenty of problems of their own, as evidenced by the team's 5-7 overall record, including four losses in the last five games of the season.
Jeff Tedford's team won't necessarily be better off, personnel-wise, without quarterback Kevin Riley and star running back Shane Vereen on offense, not to mention defensive end Cameron Jordan and safety Chris Conte on defense.
However, long-overdue changes to the coaching staff coupled with a change under center, where Riley was never really the answer in the first place, could serve the Bears well in 2011, especially in the revamped Pac-12.
Oregon State Beavers
6 of 10
Cal will be joined in the Pac-12's North division by another team that missed this past bowl season but could find itself back in the mix in 2011–Oregon State.
The Beavers were about as "Jekyll and Hyde" as it gets in 2010, fluctuating between big wins over Arizona and USC and disappointing losses to conference bottom-feeders like UCLA and Washington State.
Despite leading his team to a 5-7 record, Mike Riley deserves some credit for holding his team together amidst injuries to team leaders like wide receiver James Rodgers and struggles from young players like quarterback Ryan Katz.
Those players and others, like offensive weapon Markus Wheaton, will be back and better than ever in 2011, though the Beavs may have some difficulty filling the enormous holes left behind by the departures of running back Jacquizz Rodgers and defensive tackle Stephen Paea.
Arizona State Sun Devils
7 of 10
Not to overdo it with Pac-10/12 teams, but no discussion of (likely) bowl-bound teams in 2011 that weren't so lucky in 2010 would be incomplete without including Arizona State.
Like the Beavers with Mike Riley, the Sun Devils put Dennis Erickson through a gut-wrenchingly up-and-down season, peppered with agonizingly close losses to Wisconsin, Oregon State, USC and Stanford.
That being said, the growing pains of this past season will likely prove fruitful for ASU football in the fall, as the Devils look like a sure-fire contender to win the Pac-12.
They have 19 starters expected to return to a squad that, despite a 6-6 mark, would have reached bowl season if not for two of those wins coming against FCS opponents.
With running back Cameron Marshall rejoining quarterback Brock Osweiler in the backfield, along with a punishing defense, look for Arizona State to make a big splash on the national scene in the fall.
Purdue Boilermakers
8 of 10
Like the Pac-12, the Big Ten, despite its name, will be host to 12 teams in 2011, with at least one old member destined for a return to the postseason.
Purdue's football team hasn't fared as well as fans had "hoped" under Danny Hope, following the retirement of long-time head coach Joe Tiller.
The Boilermakers got off to a promising 4-2 start in 2010 before dropping their last six contests in conference, though the team clearly improved as the losing streak progressed.
With multi-talented quarterback Rob Henry set to pick up where he left off at the end of his freshman season, don't be surprised of Purdue does, indeed, find its way back into the bowl picture.
Cincinnati Bearcats
9 of 10
Just across the Indiana state border, the Cincinnati Bearcats will begin spring practice with their eyes fixed on a return to bowl game glory in December or January.
Butch Jones had a tough time in Year One filling in for Notre Dame head man Brian Kelly, as the Bearcats stumbled to a 4-8 finish after reaching BCS bowls in each of the previous two seasons.
The squad will certainly miss the services of star receiver Armon Binns, but should still be solid on offense with quarterback Zach Collaros and running back Isaiah Pead returning as seniors.
And, in a Big East conference that will likely be down once again thanks to more turnover among the coaching ranks of its schools, Cincy should be able to scratch and claw its way into bowl eligibility with six wins, if not more.
Mississippi Rebels
10 of 10
Now that the Jeremiah Massoli experiment is over in Oxford, Ole Miss can finally move on to becoming a winning program once again.
Houston Nutt's Rebels were something of a circus this past season, starting out the season with losses to FCS "juggernaut" Jacksonville State and 2-10 Vanderbilt before a gruesome run through the gauntlet otherwise known as the SEC West to a 1-7 record in conference.
With Masoli finally out and Nathan Stanley in full time at quarterback, the Rebels should be running back to a bowl game of some sort in 2011, especially amidst a division in which teams like Auburn, Alabama and Arkansas may be somewhat down due to talent drains to the NFL.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
