2011 Bowl Projections: Where Will Houston Land After Shocking Title-Game Loss?

Houston made it through an entire regular-season slate without losing but were unable to rekindle that magic in Saturday's Conference USA Championship Game, losing to Southern Mississippi by 21. Now that the Cougars' BCS dreams have been dashed, in which bowl game will they land?

That's a question Houston fans have been dreading ever since they began garnering national attention just over a month ago. The drop off from a BCS game to a mid-level bowl is substantial, especially for a non-power conference team.

It's a situation that could have been avoided if Houston's defense would have shown up to play against the Golden Eagles. Instead, the unit's ineptitude cost the Cougars a chance at a perfect season and a lot of BCS money.

Southern Mississippi made its intentions known right away. The defense was going to take Patrick Edwards away from Case Keenum and force other players to step up. Not enough of them did.

Because of that, a 12-1 Houston team will be relegated to a bowl which won't get nearly as much attention as their bid for perfection would have received.

The two most likely destinations are the TicketCity Bowl or the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl. Not exactly what the players were dreaming about on Friday night.

Purdue is the projected Big Ten representative for the TicketCity Bowl. The Boilermakers finished the regular season 6-6, including a loss to Rice, and ranked 61st on defense. That would bode well for Houston having a bounce-back performance.

The second option would be BYU in the Armed Forces Bowl. Playing as an independent, the Cougars were unable to pick up any marquee wins in the few games they played against formidable foes.

But the biggest problem about a possible matchup with BYU is that it wouldn't allow Houston to show what it could have done against an AQ school. Although Purdue is nothing special, at least it's a power-conference squad.

All told, neither game would do much for Houston's national reputation, which means the team's potential 13-1 final record would go widely unnoticed at season's end. Even though they didn't face elite competition, that's still a rare accomplishment.

Based on the way the bowl structure is set up with certain conferences connected to certain bowls, there aren't many alternatives for Houston. So the Cougars will just have to take whatever opportunity they're given and run with it.

In the mean time, they'll have to wonder what could have been.

Predicted Bowl: Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl