Bowl Matchups - Ranking Analysis

Because it feels necessary to do so, I decided to take a look at the bowl games. There are three types of bowl games -- games that pit 2 unranked teams against each other, games that pit a ranked team vs an unranked team, and games that pit two ranked teams against each other.

I was interested to see what the "average ranking" was for each bowl game:

BCS NCG: #1 vs #2, Avg 1.5
Fiesta Bowl: #4 vs #5, Avg 4.5
Cotton Bowl: #9 vs #11, Avg 10
Chick-Fil-A Bowl: #8 vs #14, Avg 11
Cap One Bowl: #7 vs #16, Avg 11.5
Sugar Bowl: #3 vs #21, Avg 12
Orange Bowl: #12 vs #15, Avg 13.5
Outback Bowl: #10 vs #18, Avg 14
Alamo Bowl: #13 vs #23, Avg 18

First, note that there are only 9 games between ranked teams in the entire bowl slate, at least LSU is facing a ranked opponent unlike most of the teams in bowls this year. The CFA bowl has the 4th highest combined ranking among all bowls this year, besting 3 of 5 BCS games. With a win, LSU will finish in the top 10 for the 7th time in the past 12 years.