Let’s face the unhappy facts: There are a lot of bad bowl trips awaiting college football fans.

Just look what happened to the bowl qualifiers from the Sunshine State.

Florida State won the ACC championship, and for its reward it meets Northern Illinois in the Orange Bowl.

Northern Illinois? Shouldn’t this be a September broiler, when FSU rolls in the early-season sacrificial lambs?

Sure, we’re slighting the Huskies. They won the MAC championship, and the MAC probably is more worthy of BCS consideration than the disintegrating, reintegrating and disintegrating again Big East.

Plus, the Huskies have one Akeem Daniels, former OHS standout running back, in the backfield.

But, still, I don’t think anyone in Garnett and Gold got the pep talk of, “OK guys, take care of biz in the ACC and you’ll get to play Northern Illinois in January!”

The problem for FSU is that it didn’t quite take care of business. It rolled over at N.C. State before taking an embarrassing licking from Florida.

Of course, what good did beating FSU, plus four BCS Top 10 teams, do for the Gators? They’re sentenced to the Sugar Bowl against – wait for it – Louisville, one of several co-champs from the Big East. It is very difficult to figure out who won the Big East, primarily because, on any given day, who knows who is in the conference? Louisville won’t be for long; it’s moving to the ACC along with Pitt and Syracuse. Rutgers is going to the Big Ten.

UCF, meanwhile, is headed into the Big East, which might be its second worst move after traveling to St. Petersburg for the Beef O’Brady’s Bowl against Ball State. Ball State is another MAC team that generally fields a very good basketball team and has a great comedian in David Letterman as an alumnus, and those pretty much are its qualifications for playing UCF in a bowl game, as far as Knights fans are concerned.

It isn’t just the Florida teams and their fans who got skewered by the bowl committees. Arizona State and Navy, for some reason, are meeting at the Fight Hunger Bowl in San Francisco (good seats are available!) and Pitt, for the third straight year, got sucked into the BBVA Compass Bowl in Birmingham. That’s what being .500 in the wretched Big East will do for you.

But, there are a couple of bowl games worth the trip: LSU and Clemson at the Chick-fil-A Bowl in Atlanta is tasty, and the Cotton Bowl matchup of Oklahoma and Texas A&M looks much good.

Do the Irish belong in the BCS championship game against Alabama? Why not? Sometimes, the illusion of grandeur is just as good as the real thing.

There is no illusion about the Mighty News-Gazette Divine Nine. It’s official.

No. 1: Johnny Football, your Heisman Award winner. No. 2: Charlie “Down The Hatch” Batch. No. 3: The Irish. No. 4: Roll Tide. No. 5: The Falcons. No. 6: Akeem and the Huskies. No. 7: Josie and the Pussycats. No. 8: The Texans. No. 9: The Pats.

To the games:

Army vs. Navy (-7): Every year we enjoy the pageantry and rave about what a wonderful rivalry this is, but when will the Black Knights ever get their act together and make this thing competitive? Middies by 9.

The paid professionals:

N.Y. Jets (-2.5) at Jacksonville: They finally were taking the tarps off the seats in the upper deck in J-ville, but then came the word: Sanchez, not Tebow, starts at QB for the Jets. Tebowless Jets by 5.

Miami at San Francisco (-10): Fins have little chance here, but at least they know who their quarterback is. Niners by 6.

Philadelphia at Tampa Bay (-7): These teams also know who their quarterbacks are, which truly is tragic for the Eagles. Bucs by 8.

Dallas at Cincinnati (-3): Cowboys can beat anyone in the league. Cowboys can lose to anyone in the league. Pokes by 2.

Chicago (-3) at Minnesota: Two NFC North teams clawing their way out of the playoff race. Vikes by 2.

Baltimore at Washington (-2.5):  Can RGIII do it again? Maybe, but not this week. Ravens by 2.

Houston at New England (-3.5): Patriots have their orders from our very own Tom “Captain” Kirk, native New Englander: “We will not lose again this season.” Belichick agrees. Pats by 4.

Brian “Big Man” McBride’s Super Sniffer Upset Special: Cowboys by 5.

Tom “Captain” Kirk’s Beam Me Up Scotty NFL Prime Time Pick of the Week: Pats by 13.

Ken Jackson says: Jags by 3 in “Jags Stink but Jets are from Jersey” Upset Special.

Last week: Gnarly Knight (8-1, 90-36) conked Crumbling Cranium (7-2, 90-36).