[CrazedZooChimp]

There's another potential wrinkle.  If UW beats WSU (and Utah), they would be 10-2, which might make them eligible for a New Year's 6 bowl.  You could conceivably have a situation where (god forbid) U$C wins the Pac-12 championship over Stanford and goes to the Fiesta.  UW could go to another New Years 6 bowl if it wins out (they are currently 16th but lots of dominos still to fall.  The next pick would go to the Alamo bowl which would have a choice between 9-3 WSU and 9-4 Stanford; you maintain they would go with a 9-3 WSU, but who knows?  Otherwise we fall to the Holiday, which wouldn't be the end of the world.

But the key is to beat ןɐɔ.

BC

Well, we could also beat $C and the conference could get two NY6 teams (although I think it'll be hard for UW to get into one unless they really beat WSU). I believe the conference champ is guaranteed a spot. And then we start to wonder which other NY6 bowl would we most likely be slotted in...

Another piece of the puzzle that seems to make the Holiday most likely for Stanford is WSU's very unlikely to be there choice this year, as they went last year. I believe that's the situation where the top end bowls can swap teams around a bit (and Stanford has never been to the Holiday Bowl, I think they know our fans would be pretty excited about it).

The other appeal of Stanford is we'll have a Voldemort runner up on the team, which likely helps draw TV ratings. This is also why UA is probably a more popular pick than other middling teams as well.

[CrazedZooChimp]

There's another potential wrinkle.  If UW beats WSU (and Utah), they would be 10-2, which might make them eligible for a New Year's 6 bowl.  You could conceivably have a situation where (god forbid) U$C wins the Pac-12 championship over Stanford and goes to the Fiesta.  UW could go to another New Years 6 bowl if it wins out (they are currently 16th but lots of dominos still to fall.  The next pick would go to the Alamo bowl which would have a choice between 9-3 WSU and 9-4 Stanford; you maintain they would go with a 9-3 WSU, but who knows?  Otherwise we fall to the Holiday, which wouldn't be the end of the world.

But the key is to beat ןɐɔ.

BC

Well, we could also beat $C and the conference could get two NY6 teams (although I think it'll be hard for UW to get into one unless they really beat WSU). I believe the conference champ is guaranteed a spot. And then we start to wonder which other NY6 bowl would we most likely be slotted in...

Another piece of the puzzle that seems to make the Holiday most likely for Stanford is WSU's very unlikely to be there choice this year, as they went last year. I believe that's the situation where the top end bowls can swap teams around a bit (and Stanford has never been to the Holiday Bowl, I think they know our fans would be pretty excited about it).

The other appeal of Stanford is we'll have a Voldemort runner up on the team, which likely helps draw TV ratings. This is also why UA is probably a more popular pick than other middling teams as well.