Bowling with the Irish: Where Notre Dame Will Spend the Holidays

Notre Dame's holiday plans have seemed pretty set on Orlando and the Champs Sports Bowl since their prime-time loss to USC.

Following the loss, Notre Dame found themselves with three losses, outside the rankings and a season-ending date with highly ranked Stanford awaiting.

For the Irish to earn the much coveted BCS eligibility they must either end as a top eight team (automatic qualification) or qualify for and be selected from the pool of other at-large teams.

In order to qualify a team must win nine games and be ranked 14th or higher in the final BCS poll.

Those goals were seemingly out of reach to Notre Dame, left with no margin of error and needing a lot of help to not only enter the polls, but to climb all the way to the 14th spot with only five games remaining.

So Orlando seemed to be this year's bowl destination.

The Champs Sports Bowl grew out of Miami Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga's desire to bring a second bowl to his stadium. After a couple years the initially named "Blockbuster Bowl" changed sites to the Citrus Bowl in Orlando and settled on receiving the second place Big East team against the third-place ACC squad.

Once every four years the bowl can supplant the Big East team and add Notre Dame as long as Notre Dame's record is equal to or better than the Big East team. The Big East only allows this once every four years because without a binding clause the bowl would more than likely prefer Notre Dame every year opposed to Rutgers or Louisville.

Apart from the automatic BCS bid, an at-large bid or a once-every-four-years selection into the Champs Sports Bowl, Notre Dame has surprisingly few bowl tie ins, and has to basically wait it out and see which conferences cannot fill their obligations.

This year seems to be that one in four.

There remains a slim possibility that the Irish could end up somewhere else.

Following the loss to USC, Notre Dame has reeled off four straight victories, finds their record at 8-3 with one game to go and is ranked at No. 22 in the BCS.

Further the Irish close their season visiting No. 6 Stanford. A win over the Cardinal could propel Notre Dame far enough up the standings to place them in the conversation.

Making matters more interesting is the BCS Armageddon that has occurred and has to continue over the next two weeks.

Last weekend being a BCS ranked team seemed to spell doom.

Oklahoma State, Oregon, Oklahoma, Clemson, Nebraska, Southern Mississippi, Texas and Florida State all fell.

This weekend several teams ahead of Notre Dame also face difficult tests.

No. 21 Nebraska hosts Iowa, No. 9 Oklahoma hosts Iowa State (fresh off of last week's upset of Oklahoma State), No. 13 Georgia plays at No. 23 Georgia Tech, No. 15 Michigan hosts Ohio State, No. 16 Wisconsin hosts No. 19 Penn State, No. 17 Clemson travels to No. 12 South Carolina, and No. 18 Baylor hosts Texas Tech.

Should Notre Dame beat Stanford, the Irish would likely jump any ranked team that should lose. The Irish could also be helped by another win from Michigan State earning computer points for a quality win.

An eligible Notre Dame team would be hard for the BCS to pass on.

Still, there is are a lot of "ifs" that have to come to be in order for the Irish to spend the holidays anywhere other than Orlando.

Win or lose against Stanford, expect to find Notre Dame playing in the Champs Sports Bowl at the Citrus Bowl on Dec. 29 against the University of Virginia Cavaliers who have come on to beat both Florida State and Georgia Tech head-to-head to claim third place in the conference.