The Bowl Shuffle

The 2010 college bowl contracts are slowly trickling out and so far the Gator, Alamo, Champs and Sun bowl game have new conference partners.

• Alamo - Rumored over a week ago but still not announced, the PAC-10 is moving a 2nd tie in east to San Antonio. The conference is expected to provide its #3 selection to replace the Big Ten. The Big 12 is also planning on moving its #3 from the Holiday Bowl over here as the bowl plans on increasing its payout.
  
  
• Champs Sports - Big East fans began salivating of a drastically improved bowl lineup as the conference moved its top non-BCS bowl selection to Orlando. The game isn't even the top game played in Orlando during bowl season (that belongs to the Capital One Bowl), but as new commissioner John Marinatto notes that destination, geography and opponent matter more than being on New Year's Day, at least in the conference's mind.
  
  The PAC-10 is the only other conference that is likely to have a non-New Years Day bowl game for its top non-BCS bowl team.
  
  The opponent is not yet known, so the ACC may not be sticking around here either.
  
  
• Sun - The sun shone brightly on the Big East as they thought they had the Champs Sports and Sun in place, then the ACC came in out of nowhere and its #5 selection will replace the hybrid selection of the Big 12, Big East and Notre Dame.
  
  
• Gator - The bowl that the Big East and Notre Dame mutually broke away from is exploring a multi-faceted tie-in with the ACC, Big Ten and SEC. The Gator believes in the hybrid tie-ins that the Big East wanted to avoid.

Bowl games covering the entire landscape are rumored to be changing their tie-ins, increasing their payouts and securing the best possible matchup they can. Here's a list of bowl games with the conferences who will be there in 2010:

Champs Sports: Big East
GMAC: MAC (alternating top selection with Motor City Bowl)
Hawai'i: WAC vs. C-USA
International: MAC
Motor City: MAC (see above)
Sun: ACC