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Every week, we'll take a look at where the bowl eligible Penn State Nittany Lions are projected to go bowling. This post is sponsored by the song "Almighty Malachi, Professional Bowling God" by Stephen Lynch.
SB Nation (Jason Kirk)
Bowl: Holiday Bowl
Location: San Diego, CA
Date: Dec. 30, 2015
Opponent: UCLA
CBS Sports (Jerry Palm)
Bowl: Music City Bowl
Location: Nashville, TN
Date: Dec. 30, 2015
Opponent: Mississippi State
Sporting News (Bill Bender)
Bowl: Music City Bowl
Location: Nashville, TN
Date: Dec. 30, 2015
Opponent: Tennessee
ESPN (Brett McMurphy)
Bowl: Holiday Bowl
Location: San Diego, CA
Date: Dec. 30, 2015
Opponent: USC
ESPN (Mark Schlabach)
Bowl: Outback Bowl
Location: Tampa, FL
Date: Jan. 1, 2016
Opponent: Mississippi State
Fox Sports (Stewart Mandel)
Bowl: Outback Bowl
Location: Tampa, FL
Date: Jan. 1, 2016
Opponent: Texas A&M
Welcome to the party, Stewart Mandel, who I think has the most entertaining matchup for Penn State. Texas A&M's high-powered offense going up against a Nittany Lion defense that looks like it's improving more and more each week would be awesome, and watching whoever is TAMU's QB at that point deal with the Penn State defensive line would be a blast.
McMurphy and Palm have the exact same matchups as they have over the last few weeks, while Kirk, Bender, and Schlabach all tinkered theirs a bit. Schlabach has Penn State in the same bowl as last week, but the opponent is different. He had Georgia, but now has Mississippi State plugged in as Penn State's opponent in Tampa. Bender did the same, swapping the Nittany Lions' Outback Bowl opponent from Washington State to Tennessee (which would be awesome). Kirk changed things up completely, as he had the Nittany Lions in the TaxSlayer Bowl against Kentucky last week. Now, he thinks Penn State would go to San Diego for the Holiday Bowl and take on UCLA, which would be far more fun than the TaxSlayer against the Wildcats, so thank you, Jason.
The cool thing about these bowls are that two of them go to the best non-New Years Six teams in the conference. The Holiday and the Outback are for Big Ten teams 2-4, while the Music City is for Big Ten teams 5-7. In the eyes of these people, Penn State is largely one of the best teams in the Big Ten, once you get past Ohio State and Michigan State. If Penn State keeps this up, it would be one hell of a reward if it got to go to the Holiday, Outback, or Citrus bowl. Just keep winning.