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COLUMBIA, Mo. — Well, it won’t be the bowl game Missouri wanted, but it will be the bowl game the Tigers deserve.

Mizzou, at 7-3 overall and 3-3 against Southeastern Conference opponents, lost its long-shot College Football Playoff bid in a last-minute defeat against South Carolina on Saturday. That means MU won’t be playing in a bowl game of the same luster as last season’s Cotton Bowl appearance.

But Missouri will be in a bowl nonetheless — and a fairly decent one at that. With two regular-season games — both of which the Tigers will be favored to win — left to play, they could be playing for their 10th win of the season in an eventual bowl.

Mizzou has been bowl-eligible since picking up its sixth win of the campaign against Auburn on Oct. 19.

Because the New Year’s Six bowls — Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, Peach, Sugar and Rose — are all neutral-site playoff games now, those more prestigious games are off the table for MU.

The next-best option for Missouri is the Citrus Bowl, played Dec. 31 at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida. That game has the privilege of picking the best SEC and Big Ten teams to not make the 12-team College Football Playoff field and pitting them against each other.

But it doesn’t seem likely that Mizzou’s stock will be high enough to finish as the best SEC team left out of the CFP. As things stand now, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Texas A&M, Tennessee and Mississippi seem to have fairly clear paths to the playoff.

Will all six of those contenders make it? Almost certainly not. The CFP will likely feature four, maybe five, SEC teams in its dozen-program bracket. That would leave one of those six teams as the conference’s Citrus Bowl representative.

With the Citrus Bowl slot filled, MU would drop to the so-called Pool of Six tier — six bowl games with SEC tie-ins that matchup with teams after the playoff and Citrus Bowl matchups are set. Mizzou is positioned to be among South Carolina, Louisiana State and Vanderbilt in this group, along with a potential CFP contender dropping down or the likes of Arkansas or Florida moving up.

The Pool of Six options are, in chronological order of kickoff date:

• Liberty Bowl: 6 p.m. Friday, Dec. 27 in Memphis, Tennessee. Played in Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, this game pairs an SEC team with a Big 12 opponent. Mizzou last appeared in the Liberty Bowl in 2018, losing to Oklahoma State.
• Las Vegas Bowl: 9:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 27 in Las Vegas. The most novel of the options, an SEC team will face a current or former Pac-12 school — that includes those who recently migrated to the Big Ten, Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conference — in the Las Vegas Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium. The Tigers have never played in the Las Vegas Bowl.
• Music City Bowl: 1:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 30 in Nashville, Tennessee. A short trip to the Tennessee Titans’ Nissan Stadium could be in order, which would be a date against a Big Ten opponent. Missouri was supposed to face Iowa in the 2020 Music City Bowl, but the game was canceled due to COVID-19 concerns.
• ReliaQuest Bowl: 11 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 31 in Tampa, Florida. Played at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Raymond James Stadium, the game once known as the Outback Bowl pits an SEC team against a Big Ten opponent. Missouri has never appeared in the ReliaQuest/Outback Bowl.
• Texas Bowl: 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 31 in Houston. An SEC team and Big 12 team will duel inside NRG Stadium, the home of the Houston Texans. MU faced Texas in the 2017 Texas Bowl and lost.
• Gator Bowl: 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, in Jacksonville, Florida. The only option that would take place in the new year, an SEC-ACC pairing will be contested in the Jacksonville Jaguars’ TIAA Bank Field. It’s been a while since Mizzou played in the Gator Bowl. Its last appearance in the game was against Alabama in 1968.

So where will the Tigers play? That’s to be determined after the CFP field is set on Sunday, Dec. 8. The Pool of Six games have equal footing, so it’s a guess as to which would take Missouri.

As such, bowl projections don’t mean a whole lot. But for the sake of some fun hypotheticals: ESPN has Mizzou playing either Arizona State or Washington — two former Pac-12 programs now aligned elsewhere — in the Las Vegas Bowl. CBS projects a Music City Bowl matchup between MU and defending national champion Michigan. The Action Network is projecting Missouri-Syracuse in the Gator Bowl.

Nobody asked for the Post-Dispatch’s bowl programming ideas, but here are a couple anyway:

How about Missouri and Illinois in the Music City Bowl? They last played each other in 2010 and won’t resume competitive gridiron relations until 2026. There’s history and a good chance both the Tigers and Illini will have 9-3 records. Plus, Nashville is a very doable drive for both fan bases — and a little tension could make the game a bit more competitive than it otherwise would be.

Want a game against a former foe? Mizzou and Iowa State could rekindle a matchup dating back to 1896 in the Liberty Bowl. It would be the 105th meeting between the Tigers and Cyclones, and they haven’t seen each other since MU left the Big 12 following the 2011 season. Maybe the Telephone Trophy could make the relatively short trip to Memphis.