Bowl outlook promising for Michigan football team after road win at Illinois

Michigan is in position to play in a prime bowl game, and Brady Hoke would like to see the Wolverines improve their position. "We'd like to have 10 wins," he said. "We have two guaranteed opportunities left."

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The Big Ten had been unkind to road teams, but that was not the case this weekend.

That makes the Michigan football team's 31-14 win at Illinois all the more important to its postseason bowl prospects. A loss could have been devastating.

Road teams entered the weekend 9-22 in Big Ten play, but went 4-1. Michigan would have lost important bowl positioning if it would have lost.

Instead, the No. 22 Wolverines are 8-2 overall — their most regular-season wins since 2007 — and 4-2 in Big Ten play. It also keeps them in the mix atop the Legends Division, where Michigan State leads at 5-1 and Nebraska trails by a game with the Wolverines at 4-2.

Both those teams won on the road Saturday. Michigan kept pace.

"The murmurs around campus were Michigan can't play on the road," defensive lineman Ryan Van Bergen said. "I don't buy into that. We're a team that can play in any stadium on any given Saturday and give our best effort and beat good teams. Illinois is a good team.

Defensive lineman Ryan Van Bergen, (right, sacking Illinois quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase) on Michigan: "We're a team that can play in any stadium on any given Saturday and give our best effort and beat good teams."

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

"I definitely didn't want that to be the stigma when we left here, 'Oh, Michigan was good, they just couldn't play on the road.' We can play on the road."

Michigan remains mathematically alive to advance to the Big Ten title game, but the odds are long. The Wolverines would need to win their final two games, and have Michigan State — which closes with Indiana (1-9, 0-6) and Northwestern (5-5, 2-4) — lose its final two games.

But a good bowl is in sight, thanks to their work in Champaign, Ill.

Just two teams match or exceed Michigan in the Leaders Division, where Penn State leads at 5-1 and Wisconsin trails at 4-2. That means, overall, Michigan is in a three-way tie for third place in the Big Ten. The third bowl tie-in for the league is the Outback Bowl.

If the Wolverines were to win out, this would be their likely destination, although they also would have a chance at the Capital One Bowl, the league's second draw. That is the best-case scenario for this team, and a very good one at that.

It will be interesting to see how bowls treat the loser of the Big Ten title game. It's possible a second-place divisional team, such as Michigan, has a better record than the loser of the championship game. Will the league runner-up be punished with a worse bowl bid? Or will it still be preferred ahead of a divisional runner-up, despite an extra loss?

Michigan's worst-case scenario likely is the Insight Bowl, which is the Big Ten's fifth bid. The sixth bid, the Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas, could be in play if the Wolverines lose out, but that's not likely to happen because they normally bid-up due to their national appeal and ability to travel.

The Gator Bowl is the Big Ten fourth draw, but Michigan isn't likely to accept a bid to play in Jacksonville, Fla., after it was blown out by Mississippi State there last year.

All told, Michigan is most likely to end up at the Outback Bowl or Insight Bowl, but the Capital One is in play. Those are good options for a team with a first-year coach and only one bowl appearance in the past three years.

If the Wolverines can split their final two games against Nebraska and Ohio State, they will be a lock for a winning Big Ten record, a nine-win season and an attractive bowl bid.

Not that the first-year coach is satisfied with that logic.

"Well, we’d like to have 10 wins," Brady Hoke said, when asked about Michigan reaching eight wins for the first time since 2007. "We have two guaranteed opportunities left, and we get to be at home for both of them."

Big Ten bowl tie-ins, with predictions

Rose Bowl
Date: Jan. 2
Location: Pasadena, Calif.
Tie-ins: Big Ten No. 1 vs. Pac-12 No. 1
Prediction: Wisconsin vs. Oregon

Capital One Bowl
Date: Jan. 1
Location: Orlando, Fla.
Tie-ins: Big Ten No. 2 vs. SEC No. 2
Prediction: Nebraska vs. Arkansas

Outback Bowl
Date: Jan. 1
Location: Tampa, Fla.
Tie-ins: Big Ten No. 3 vs. SEC Nos. 3/4
Prediction: Michigan State vs. Georgia

Gator Bowl
Date: Jan. 2
Location: Jacksonville, Fla.
Tie-ins: Big Ten No. 4 vs. SEC No. 6
Prediction: Penn State vs. Auburn

Insight Bowl
Date: Dec. 28
Location: Tempe, Ariz.
Tie-ins: Big Ten No. 5 vs. Big 12 No. 4
Prediction: Michigan vs. Texas

Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas
Date: Dec. 31
Location: Houston
Tie-ins: Big Ten No. 6 vs. Big 12 No. 6
Prediction: Ohio State (if eligible) vs. Missouri

TicketCity Bowl
Date: Jan. 2
Location: Dallas
Tie-ins: Big Ten No. 7 vs. C-USA No. 2
Prediction: Iowa vs. Southern Miss

Little Caesar's Bowl
Date: Dec. 27
Location: Detroit
Tie-ins: Big Ten No. 8 vs. MAC No. 1
Prediction: Illinois vs. Toledo

Insight Bowl? Outback Bowl? The national championship game? Leave your predictions in the comments below. (Just don't say national championship game, if you want to be taken seriously.)

Kyle Meinke covers Michigan football for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at 734-623-2588, by email at kylemeinke@annarbor.com and followed on Twitter @kmeinke.