NORFOLK, Va. – Brett McMurphy is one of the most plugged-in college football reporters around, so when he makes bowl projections, it's wise to listen. And he predicts Old Dominion will take on Western Kentucky in the Famous Toastery Bowl in Charlotte.
In case you hadn't heard of the Famous Toastery Bowl, it's actually the Bahamas Bowl, which could not be played in Nassau because of stadium renovations there. It will be played at UNC Charlotte's Jerry Richardson Stadium for one year before moving back to the Caribbean.
As a destination, Charlotte makes a lot of sense for both schools. Charlotte is a 5-hour drive from Norfolk and about 6 ½ hours from Bowling Green, Kentucky. The game will be played on Monday, Dec. 18, at 2 p.m.
It's also an intriguing matchup in that WKU and ODU were Conference USA rivals from 2014 through 2021. And Dr. Wood Selig, ODU's director of athletics, served as the AD at WKU before coming to Norfolk.
ODU won its first bowl game in the Bahamas in 2016, when the Monarchs defeated Eastern Michigan, 24-20.
Brett McMurphy's bowl projections
But other prominent sports sites have ODU going elsewhere.
- Fox Sports predicts that ODU will meet Wyoming in the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth, Texas on Dec. 23.
- The Athletic has the Monarchs taking on Bowling Green in the Camellia Bowl in Montgomery, Alabama on Dec. 23.
- The Sporting News has ODU playing former Conference USA rival Rice in the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa, Florida on Dec. 22.
- USA Today predicts the Monarchs will be on the other side of Florida, taking on WKU in the Boca Raton Bowl on Dec. 21.
All of those matchups are possible. ODU could also end up in the Military Bowl, Dec. 27 in Annapolis, Maryland, the First Responder Bowl in Dallas on Dec. 26 or the Frisco Bowl, Dec 19 in Frisco, Texas.
But the truth is, nobody outside of ESPN's offices in Bristol, Connecticut knows for sure. And we likely won't know until Sunday, when ESPN announces who's playing where and when during its annual bowl game preview show.
While the bowl lineups are somewhat predictable for Power Five schools, it's not as regimented in the Group of Five.
The ACC, for instance, spells out that the league champion, or the highest-ranked team not in the College Football Playoff, will play in the Orange Bowl. The rest of the ACC's bowls are tiered, and the bowls have a lot of say in who will play in their games.
For the Group of Five, including the Sun Belt Conference, 17 bowl games are owned by ESPN, which also televises almost every game, so the World Wide Leader in Sports makes most of the selections.
ESPN is looking for the best games not just for the schools involved and bowl officials, but matchups that will draw the most viewers, and that's not a bad thing.
Sunday's show begins at noon, and for 2 ½ hours you will hear about the College Football Playoff and the New Year's Six games.
Word is that the rest of the bowl games will be announced between 2:30 through 4 p.m. And yes, the good folks at ESPN are stringing things out so that you will stay tuned in as long as possible.
Dr. Wood Selig, ODU's director of athletics, has talked with Commissioner Keith Gill and others in the Sun Belt Conference office about the University's preferences for a bowl game.
ODU wants to be as close to Norfolk as possible so that as many fans as possible can attend. But ODU would not mind a far-off location if the venue is nice and is played in a city in which fans, coaches and players would enjoy spending time.
"We always have some say, but the bowls are basically driven by ESPN since they own so many of them," Selig said.
"We're in constant contact with Commissioner Gill. We've told him we'd like this opportunity or would love that one. Whether that materializes or not, who knows?"
The Sun Belt's immense success this season has complicated Gill's task. Twelve of the 14 Sun Belt teams are in bowls, and that's more than any other conference. It's a testament to the parity in the league and to the Sun Belt's prowess in winning non-conference games.
With only five bowl affiliations, seven Sun Belt teams will end up filling bowl slots left empty by Conference USA, American Athletic Conference and the Mid-American Conference, which failed to provide enough teams for their bowl affiliates.
"Commissioner Gill has 12 teams to look after," Selig said. "And ESPN has an impossible task to trying to put everybody in a location they desire. They're looking for TV matchups. They're looking for geography.
"Some fans are going to be ecstatic about where they go and others are going to say, 'woe is me' and 'how did we get this draw?'
"Like the men's basketball tournament, there are certain principles. You don't put two teams from the same conference together. You try to avoid teams that have already played each other.
"We've made sure the conference knows what our thoughts are, but we're not naïve enough to think we're going to pull the strings."
It surely helps ODU's case that the school took nearly 5,000 fans to the Myrtle Beach Bowl two years ago.
That's all ODU can do, with the exception of basking in the glow of the national limelight that comes from being in a bowl.
It's the second bowl bid in head coach Ricky Rahne's three seasons here. And while Rahne says the best part of being in a bowl game is being able to have 20 more practices and spend more time with his players, the best part for ODU is remaining a part of the college football conversation for the next month.
For 3 ½ hours or so, ODU will be playing in a postseason game on national TV, and most Group of Five bowls draw in excess of a million viewers.
"Being in a bowl game helps recruiting," said Rahne, who has spent much of this week recruiting. "Every player wants to compete in a bowl game."
Beyond playing on national TV, there are four or five days on site before the game in which the host community does its best to entertain and impress both teams.
Players receive bowl-game gifts, and for their families, it's a chance to spent time with their sons for nearly a week away from home and school.
Players, families and coaches all had a blast two years ago in Myrtle Beach.
And in a few weeks, the Monarchs will get to again enjoy that same experience, be it in Charlotte, Frisco or anywhere else.
Minium is ODU's senior executive writer for athletics. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram