Who will BYU play in the Las Vegas Bowl

The following article is from 2006. Click here for 2007 Las Vegas Bowl information. In 2009, BYU will play Oregon State in the Maaco Las Vegas Bowl.

I’m not all knowing when it comes to football bowl games, but I do know enough to try and guess. The number 4 team from the Pac-10 will go to the Las Vegas Bowl to play BYU. It could be any of these teams: Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona State, and Washington State.

I used some win possibilities from teamrankings.com to find percentage possibilites that each team would have a 4th place conference record.

Oregon would be a possibility if they beat Oregon State next week. Even if they lost to Oregon, they would still be a possibility as long as both UCLA and Arizona lose their final games. This case has a 69% chance of occurring.

Oregon State would be a possibility only if they lost to Oregon next week. This case has a 50% chance of occurring.

UCLA would be a possibility if they beat USC in two weeks. They would still be a possibility even if they lost to USC, provided that Arizona and Oregon also loose their games. This case has a 43% chance of occurring.

Arizona would be a possibility if they beat Arizona State next week. Even if they lost to Arizona State, they would still be a possibility provided that UCLA and Oregon lose. This case has a 69% chance of occurring.

Arizona State would have a possibility only if they beat Arizona and Oregon lost and UCLA lost. This case has only a 19% chance of occurring.

Washington State is a possibility only if Oregon, UCLA, and Arizona all lose their final conference games. This case has only a 19% chance of occurring. This is the same case as Arizona State above, the difference being that Washington State doesn’t play in any more games so their fate is sealed on others.

If Oregon beats Oregon State, then up to four teams would be in 3rd place in the conference and could be headed to the Sun Bowl. Assuming that all of the third place teams have equal chance at being invited to the Sun Bowl, and assuming that each team with a fourth place conference record had an equal chance at being invited to the Las Vegas Bowl (which isn’t really true because the Bowl tends to like some teams more than others) then the chance that BYU will play each team turns out to be:

Oregon: 23%
Oregon State: 19%
Arizona: 33%
Arizona State: 4%
UCLA: 16%
Washington State: 4%

The difference between these percentages and the case percentages above, is that these count the possibility that the team will go to the Las Vegas Bowl, not the possibility that a certain set of game outcomes will happen. For example, the case that Oregon and Arizona lose while UCLA win is only 6% probable, but if it happens, UCLA will be the only team with a fourth place conference record and would go to the Las Vegas Bowl. The case that all of Oregon, UCLA, and Arizona all lose is more probable (19%) but if it happens, there are 4 different teams that would tie for a fourth place conference record, and if they all have equal probability of being chosen, then the 19% gets divided four ways not really making it so any of those teams are more probable than the rest.

If however, both the Sun bowl and the Las Vegas Bowl take the overall team record into consideration when choosing a team to invite to the Bowl, and chooses the third and fourth place conference teams respectively with the best overall record, then the percentage breakdown goes more like this:
Oregon: 10% (if Oregon wins they will go to the Sun Bowl)
Oregon State: 33%
Arizona: 33%
Arizona State: 10%
UCLA: 14%

Anyway, this may all seem like throwing numbers up on a wall like spaghetti to see if it sticks, and you may be right. But I would guess that the chance of seeing a BYU verses Arizona rematch is in the mix among other possibilites.

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