In the week before the Gophers football team played Wisconsin, the head of the Capital One Bowl in Orlando told his staff to make sure someone was going to Minneapolis for what figured to be the Gophers' biggest game of the year.
But when the Gophers lost to the Badgers, then lost again to Michigan State, the Capital One Bowl moved on. With Big Ten champion Michigan State playing in the Rose Bowl and Ohio State also getting a BCS invitation in the Orange Bowl, the Capital One, the bowl with the second Big Ten choice after the Rose, selected Wisconsin.
With the next Big Ten choice, the Outback Bowl chose Iowa. The Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl then chose Michigan, even though the Wolverines had a worse overall record than the Gophers. Adding insult to injury, the Gator Bowl took Nebraska even though the Gophers beat the Cornhuskers in October.
Four bowl games, all bound to select a Big Ten team, passed on the Gophers, who have an 8-4 record but also a historically poor reputation of drawing fans to bowl games.
Making matters worse, Michigan was chosen ahead of the Gophers in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl even though the Tempe, Ariz., bowl's sponsor is headquartered in St. Louis Park and a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant sits across the street from TCF Bank Stadium. The company "would be very careful about showing any bias," said Angela Mineo, a spokeswoman for Buffalo Wild Wings, "[as] much as they probably love the Gophers."
The Gophers instead for the second year in a row fell to the Texas Bowl. Tickets for the game — where the Gophers play Syracuse in Houston's Reliant Stadium — were selling for $1 on a national ticket website Monday, four days before the game.
For their part, the Gophers are making the best of things.
"We are extremely excited to be invited to the Texas Bowl," said Chris Werle, a school spokesman. "Playing in a prestigious bowl game is good for the program, and the ability to have our game televised nationwide with no competing games is great for our student-athletes, alumni and fans."