Bowl Selection Special: Virginia Tech and Cincinnati Land in the Orange Bowl

The Orange Bowl already has one team locked up -- again, the anti-climatic downside of the BCS Selection Show -- because Virginia Tech beat Boston College for the ACC championship and guaranteed themselves a spot in the Orange Bowl.

The thing that stinks for fans of this game is that the Orange Bowl gets the last pick of all the BCS games, meaning that they get the "leftovers." That's not to take a shot at Cincy, who did win the Big East ... which, um, is somehow worse than the ACC.

On the bright side, the two worst major conferences do get to play each other, so we'll know by the beginning of 2009 which conference really was the most mediocre this past season.

Cincinnati did lose two games -- albeit one to Oklahoma -- and theoretically took care of business.

However, the Bearcats will likely be in trouble come New Year's Day, when whatever analysts FOX assigns to this game will suffocate their ability to perform by reminding them that they have to go head-to-head with "BEAMER BALL!" for four quarters. And when people yell that at you for 60-plus minutes of football, even from the booth, it's a total nightmare.

And in addition, Cincy has played some tougher defenses this year (Not sure if I'm going to count Oklahoma though), including a nasty South Florida defense that they hung 24 points on. Brian Kelly is blatantly going to be a hero in Ohio now, and this BCS berth is the big reason why (in fact, he's turned down other jobs because, as he said tonight, he thinks Cincy is "no longer a stepping stone" and "a great job.")

A Hokies-Bearcats matchup could be entertaining, and the Hokies are likely to be favored, simply based on the conference (even though people will ignore the three-loss factor) and the relative inexperience of the Bearcats ... but I'll tell you this much -- as someone who's watched the ACC all season long, don't be surprised at Frank Beamer and crew's ability to mess this one up.