Ater a tough Apple Cup loss, the WSU football team awaits the announcement of its bowl destination.

Bowl selections will be announced at 9 a.m. Sunday on ESPN, and the media has provided some speculation as to where the team may end up.

The Cougars finished the season second in the Pac-12 North Division and tied for the third-best conference record overall. Despite the stellar conference season, an Apple Cup rout pushed WSU out of the College Football Playoff top-25 and behind five other Pac-12 teams in the national rankings.

The top-ranked team in the Pac-12 is the No. 4 Washington Huskies, and assuming UW takes down No. 8 Colorado in the Pac-12 Championship Game tonight, it presents a strong résumé for a spot in the College Football Playoff.

From there, the Rose Bowl likely takes Colorado or No. 10 USC. The team that does not make the Rose Bowl then heads to the conference’s second-highest rated bowl game in the Alamo Bowl, leaving WSU, No. 18 Stanford and No. 22 Utah all vying for a spot in the Holiday Bowl.

Before losses in the final two weeks of the season, the Cougars looked to be in a great position to find themselves playing the Holiday Bowl with an 8-2 overall record. Stefanie Loh of the Seattle Times reported in an article that a Holiday Bowl representative made a visit to Pullman to watch the Cougars trounce California 56-21 on Nov. 12.

That said, WSU’s Apple Cup performance was deflating for both fans and players and did not inspire confidence for a postseason game against a tough opponent. Two consecutive losses never look good on a bowl résumé, especially when one is a massive defeat to a rival at home in a highly anticipated matchup.

Luckily for the Cougars, Utah sputtered down the stretch as well, with losses to Oregon and the Colorado to conclude the regular season, leaving the door open for the Cougars to leapfrog the 22nd-ranked Utes and get themselves into a better bowl game.

Stanford sits in a similar position to WSU as it awaits its postseason fate after an Oct. 22 loss to Colorado. The Cardinal reeled off five straight emphatic victories and catapulted themselves back into the national rankings.

An early season drubbing of Stanford potentially gives the Cougars some traction in the race for the Holiday Bowl, but a historically strong in-state program riding a five-game winning streak may be tough for the bowl committee to pass up.

That being said, the Cougars could be destined for the Foster Farms Bowl. Two late losses and an early season debacle to FCS Eastern Washington hurts WSU’s postseason credentials and may give Stanford a leg up for a Holiday Bowl selection when performing the eyeball test.

The Cougars possible saving grace is the constant talk of their potential to be spoilers all season.

With the Big 10 being the other conference contracted with the Foster Farms Bowl, the Cougars have a chance to face one of two teams that have been nationally ranked at some point in the regular season in Nebraska or Iowa.

Note that these predictions assume that UW defeats Colorado and earns the fourth spot in the College Football Playoff. If Washington loses to Colorado, however, every team is likely pushed down a spot in the pecking order, ultimately staunching a Holiday Bowl bid for WSU.