Tom Dienhart, BTN.com Senior Writer, October 1, 2012

Five weeks are in the books, and the bowl picture is coming into a bit sharper focus ? a bit. To review: The Big Ten has tie-ins with eight bowls-but it has only 10 bowl-eligible schools, as Penn State and Ohio State are on NCAA and banned from the postseason in 2012.

With conference play here, schools now are beating up on each other, alternately helping and hurting each program?s bowl stock. Several schools enhanced their bowl resume with nice wins last Saturday, including Iowa, Purdue, Nebraska and Northwestern.

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The Big Ten should be able to fill all of its slots, with only Illinois and Indiana not in a bowl for now. And while history says the Big Ten is likely to get two teams in the BCS (It has had two teams in the BCS 11 times in the 14-year history of the system), I am willing to admit it?s probably a long shot to happen this season.

Here is my sixth look at where your school may be bowling over the holidays:

BOWL GAME DATE OTHER CONFERENCE DIENHART'S PROJECTIONS
Little Caesars Pizza Dec. 26 MAC Ohio vs. Minnesota
Meineke Car Care Dec. 28 Big 12 Baylor vs. Michigan State
Buffalo Wild Wings Dec. 29 Big 12 Texas Tech vs. Wisconsin
TicketCity Jan. 1 C-USA Tulsa vs. Iowa
Capital One Jan. 1 SEC LSU vs. Michigan
Outback Jan. 1 SEC Florida vs. Purdue
Gator Jan. 1 SEC South Carolina vs. Northwestern
Rose Jan. 1 BCS Oregon vs. Nebraska

And here's a look back at last week's projections.

BTN.com senior writer Tom Dienhart is a veteran sports journalist who covers Big Ten football and men's basketball for BTN.com and BTN TV. Find him on Twitter and Facebook, read all of his work at btn.com/tomdienhart, and subscribe to his posts via RSS. Also, send questions to his weekly mailbag using the form below and read all of his previous answers in his reader mailbag section.

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