Because they don't play Connecticut until Sunday night, the Bulls had a Saturday to watch college football, to see how other games might change their bowl situation, and things turned out about as well as the Bulls could expect.

First, with Syracuse's wild upset of Notre Dame -- first, a quality win for the Big East, but just as importantly, barring the Irish winning against Southern Cal, which seems quite unlikely, the Irish will finish at 6-6, which should take them out of contention for a Big East-affiliated bowl. That's one more spot for a Big East team, which moves USF up one rung on the ladder.

Louisville lost to West Virginia, putting them at 5-6, and with Rutgers' win against Army (which put them 6-5), the Bulls can root for Louisville to beat Rutgers, knowing that a 7-5 team would have to be picked ahead of them if they lose out and finish 6-6. Again, if Notre Dame doesn't take a bowl, that shouldn't matter -- at best, USF would be one of two 6-6 teams at the low end of the Big East bowl options, and the St. Petersburg Bowl would surely take the Bulls for their proximity and help with attendance.

Weird weekend, in that so few of the teams that could have made themselves bowl-eligible were able to do so. So far, I count 13 five-win teams that were in action, and right now, only three -- Clemson, Rutgers and Colorado State -- got that elusive sixth win. Nine others with five wins -- Virginia, Louisville, Illinois, Stanford, Memphis, UTEP, Akron, Louisiana-Lafayette and FAU -- all lost. And three teams still technically alive entering today with 4-6 records (Duke, Arkansas, Marshall) officially became bowl-ineligible with their seventh loss.

What does that mean for the St. Petersburg Bowl? It's not looking any better. Conference USA has four bowl eligible teams and St. Pete picks fifth, but Memphis lost to UCF and UTEP lost to Houston. Marshall's out of the picture, so St. Pete is now looking at three 5-6 teams, hoping Memphis can beat measly Tulane, UTEP can get a win at East Carolina or Southern Miss can win at lowly SMU. Looks like they'll get a C-USA team, but a remarkably mediocre 6-6 one at that.

And if somehow C-USA can't send a team to St. Pete, their backup plan is the Sun Belt, which has one bowl-eligible team in Troy. Louisiana-Lafayette and FAU are now 5-6, so the "good" news is that Arkansas State (5-5) and Middle Tennessee (5-6) won to stay alive for bowls. FIU lost but is still technically in the hunt at 4-6.

RIght now, there are 68 bowl slots in college football and 64 bowl-eligible teams with two full weeks to play. i count 16 more teams that could be bowl-eligible, which makes it look like there will be a lot of 6-6 teams staying home next month. That puts some pressure on USF, but I don't think any BCS-conference six-win teams will be left out of the bowls ...

And could Tony Pike sneak off with Big East Offensive Player of the Year honors? He has Cincy up 28-14 on Pittsburgh right now, with 15 touchdowns and four interceptions on the season. If, say, UConn's Donald Brown has a down game against USF, it'd be hard to vote against Pike if he leads Cincy to a Big East crown with a broken forearm, putting up those numbers while missing two games and barely playing in two others.