With Nebraska headed to the Capital One Bowl and Michigan now officially headed to the Outback Bowl, Northwestern is locked into the Gator Bowl.

We don't have a fun official confirmation from the bowl, but Northwestern probably won't fall further - although it is still hypothetically possible the Gator picks Michigan State (two-win rules don't apply here) but we're not going to even consider that thought. So we sort of backed into this one, but we'll take it. I understand some frustration from fans that Northwestern got the least attractive of the bowls available, but whatever, we're headed to a warm place to play a game Northwestern can win. We don't have to give ourselves false hope that we can beat Georgia for a few weeks.

There's also still no official word from anybody as to who Northwestern will play, but pretty much everybody projects Mississippi State and the fightin' Cowbells. That's okay.

Now Northwestern has to end its 64-year bowl win drought, hopefully preventing us writers from having to stop bringing it up.