It’s another Sunday of waiting for the Tigers. It won’t be until around 7 p.m. that the Alamo Bowl is able to officially extend its invitation to the Tigers to play a Big Ten team. And it won’t be until around noon or so to see if Missouri was able to stay in the top 25 after Saturday’s loss to Oklahoma. The Tigers have been in the AP top 25 for 27 consecutive weeks since breaking in last year after the third game of the season.

All signs still point to the Alamo Bowl against either Northwestern or Iowa but both the Big 12 and Big 10 have to wait for the BCS process to play out before releasing teams for the rest of the bowls they are affiliated with. In the Big 12, it’s likely OU and Texas are in BCS games leaving the Cotton with the next pick (Texas Tech over Oklahoma State), then the Holiday (Oklahoma State over Missouri), then the Gator (Nebraska already has the OK to sell tickets) and then the Alamo (Missouri). The Big Ten has to wait to see if Ohio State gets an at-large bid to the BCS before its other spots get filled. Most projections have Northwestern headed to San Antonio.

Alamo Bowl officials said they weren’t too concerned with the fact that Missouri and its fans had been to San Antonio last year for the Big 12 title game. “It’s a different experience for the bowl and a more relaxed week. It can be more fun for the players and fans,” the official said.

As far as the polls go, the Tigers are 23rd in the Sagarin computer rankings (OU is No. 1, by the way, followed by Texas, Texas Tech and Florida.) In the AP poll, with a limited number of games Saturday, there probably aren’t enough teams who won big (unranked Virginia Tech over  No. 18 BC is about it) to force a fall out of the poll for the Tigers.

Northwestern, the likely Alamo Bowl opponent, went into the weekend ranked 24th by AP. Two of Northwestern’s three losses were to ranked teams (Michigan State and Ohio State) along with an upset loss to Indiana. Its strongest wins were over Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois.