Is Rutgers headed to the Rate Bowl? Maybe, but there’s a chance to peak at the Music City Bowl

Rate this: Option 1 is a trip to Phoenix, Arizona for the Rate Bowl. The game will be played on December 26th against a Big 12 team.

Option 2 is an invitation to the Music City Bowl to face an SEC opponent on December 30 in Nashville, Tennessee.

Easy choice, right? For Rutgers, it will be singing — and signing — for the country of Elvis Presley, with whatever country accent coach Greg Schiano can manage.

Heading into the final weekend of the regular season, Rutgers appeared to be a lock for the Rate Bowl, but an impressive 41-14 win over Michigan State on Saturday in East Lansing, Michigan, and enough chaos elsewhere have opened up the possibility for Rutgers escape one of the Big Ten’s bottom bowl games, which begins the day after Christmas.

Let’s start by saying this: Nothing is a guarantee. Everything comes from the College Football Playoff, and the Big Ten’s path to fielding four teams suffered a setback Saturday after Michigan defeated No. 2 Ohio State. With two wins against top-five opponents, will Ohio State still be left out with a 10-2 record? It’s unlikely, but not impossible either.

For all intents and purposes, let’s assume all four teams are at the top of the Big Ten standings – No. 1 Oregon (12-0), No. 4 Penn State (11-1), No. 10 Indiana (11- 1) and No. 2 Ohio State (10-2) — make up the 12-team field. That’s the best-case scenario for Rutgers to come to Nashville, leaving six other Big Ten teams for seven open spots. Keep in mind that newcomers from the Pac-12 are not eligible to play in these games this season, even though Washington and USC have reached the six-win mark.

The seven games (below) are listed in order of ranking, meaning the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl gets the best possible Big Ten team that doesn’t qualify for the CFP. The selection process then moves downward for the next six selections.

Against this background, you can see here what the selection committees will examine on a case-by-case basis.

Illinois plays from the dirt: This feels like a given. Outside the top four, Illinois established itself as the best of the bunch by reaching the nine-win mark. Illinois lost to Minnesota, but has a pretty solid record with wins over Kansas, Michigan and Nebraska.

Choose between Iowa and Michigan: Michigan will begin the postseason with its biggest win of the season against Ohio State, but how does its overall record compare to Iowa? For me this is a mistake. I would imagine Michigan gets the nod due to its relevancy aspect, its prestige as the reigning national champions and its large fan base. In any case, these two teams should be next in line to fill the spots for the ReliaQuest Bowl and Duke’s Mayo Bowl.

Who goes to Music City? There are three teams available in this scenario: Minnesota (7-5, 5-4), Rutgers (7-5, 4-5) and Nebraska (6-6, 3-6). Minnesota has the most complete resume, but Rutgers defeated the Golden Gophers 26-19. Nebraska also earned a 14-7 head-to-head win over Rutgers.

The end result

It will likely come down to whether the Music City Bowl wants Minnesota or Rutgers. Rutgers got the head-to-head victory that seemingly should have been the tiebreaker. However, it’s hard to look past Minnesota’s entire resume, which includes two ranked wins against then-No. 11 USC and No. 24 Illinois.

Rutgers, meanwhile, lost to both teams. Heading into the weekend, Minnesota was performing better than Rutgers in the polls. In five national polls, the Golden Gophers averaged a ranking of 37.8 compared to 57.8 for the Scarlet Knights.

If Minnesota wins the Music City Bowl, it would catapult Rutgers into the Rate Bowl. Due to a diversion clause, the Scarlet Knights cannot play in the Pinstripe Bowl for the second year in a row.