Let the speculation begin.

With its sixth win, the Penn State football team is officially bowl eligible. The Nittany Lions will likely be favored in their last three games. With a 9-3 record still a possibility, the Lions could find themselves in any one of the bowl games with which the Big Ten has a tie-in except the Rose Bowl.

Bowl game committees base their choices on overall records. The only regulation on a bowl committee with a Big Ten tie-in is that it cannot select a team that has more than one loss more than another available team in the conference when it's choice comes up.

If the Lions (6-3, 3-3 Big Ten) would win out and Minnesota would not upset Michigan (7-2, 4-1) and Iowa, the Lions would likely have the Big Ten's fourth best overall record, which would put them in line for the Alamo Bowl. They can't finish any higher than third in the Big Ten with Iowa and Ohio State both 5-0 in conference and therefore can't get an automatic Bowl Championship Series berth, and an at-large berth is possible but a huge stretch.

If they won out, they would finish no further than one game behind Michigan, and could be selected over them for the Outback Bowl, the No. 3 tie-in. They probably wouldn't because Michigan defeated the Lions.

If both Iowa (No. 8 in BCS) and Ohio State (No. 2) win out and get BCS berths, the Lions would have a good chance to go to the Capital One Bowl on Jan. 1. Michigan, who still has to play Ohio State, would then have three losses, as many as Penn State. Though the Wolverines would be ahead of the Lions in the conference standings, the Lions would likely be picked because the Wolverines have played in the then-Citrus Bowl in each of the past two and three of the last four seasons.

"(Michigan has) been good to us. They've given us good TV ratings," said Tom Mickle the executive director of Florida Citrus Sports, the company that manages the Capital One Bowl. "But we've talked to Michigan. we've talked to the Big Ten. Everyone feels that a year apart from each other would help all parties."

If two teams make the BCS, the one-loss rule is waived for those bowl games, and even if the Lions lose and don't have the third or fourth best records among Big Ten teams, they would still be very attractive to those games.

Though bowl game committees are non-profit organizations, they have to be concerned with generating enough revenue to pay the teams the money they are guaranteed. The Lions would allow them to do that easily. As a traditional powerhouse, they can draw local attention and TV ratings, and after two seasons without a bowl game, their fans are expected to travel for this one.