The Bard of Avon, as the story goes, once wrote that politics makes strange bedfellows, or words to that effect. Putting it in college football terms, Billy Shakespeare basically was saying that sooner or later, you'll be rooting for a team you usually would despise.
For Gophers football fans who like to travel to bowl games, the strange bedfellow this week is Penn State. You'll want the Nittany Lions to beat Michigan State on Saturday.
Just why in the name of the Governor's Victory Bell would a Gophers fan want Penn State to win? That answer is simple.
Detroit. As in avoiding spending the day after Christmas there for the Quick Lane Bowl, the last game in the Big Ten's bowl pecking order.
Here's where Penn State comes in. The Nittany Lions are No. 11 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings, one spot behind Tennessee, which finishes against Vanderbilt. With Saturday's Ohio State vs. Michigan winner a lock to be in the playoff and the loser in the Rose Bowl, if not the playoff, the Big Ten will have at least two teams in the New Year's Six bowls — the Fiesta and Peach being playoff semifinals, joined by the Rose, Orange, Sugar and Cotton.
If Penn State can move ahead of Tennessee, it could become a third Big Ten team in the New Year's Six. And if the Nittany Lions are selected for the Cotton Bowl, then the remaining Big Ten bowl-eligible teams would move up a spot in the bowl pecking order.
Another way for the Big Ten to get three teams in the New Year's Six would be Ohio State and Michigan both making the playoff and Penn State slotting into the Rose Bowl. That likely would require a loss by TCU and/or USC.
Should Penn State be selected to the Orange Bowl, that would not help the other Big Ten teams, because the Citrus Bowl then would take an ACC team to fill the Big Ten slot.
