Star-Ledger; New York Times disagree on Rutgers at Texas Bowl

Following Rutgers' win against Louisville and loss to Cincinnati, we have

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Newark Star-Ledger, p. 49 (21 Nov. 06)

RU Bowl: Orange or Sun?

If Rutgers wins its final two games, it goes to Jan 2 Orange Bowl as Big East champions, to face ACC champion.

If Rutgers splits, likely Dec. 29 Sun Bowl, with a Pac-10 team.

--The Big East also has tie-ins with the Dec. 23 PapaJohn's.com Bowl in Birmingham; the Dec. 28 Texas Bowl in Houston, and the Jan. 6 International Bowl in Toronto. Rutgers, however, doesn't appear to be a candidate for any of those.--

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New York Times, section D, p. 6 (20 Nov. 06)

Rutgers Learns Downside Of High Expectations

The Scarlet Knights cannot look down on the Texas Bowl, because
barring an upset, they could be headed there.

Should Louisville and West Virginia win their last two games,
they will finish first and second in the Big East. Rutgers will be in third, and
under the Big East bowl agreements, the third-place team would most likely be
picked by the Texas Bowl.

Such are the consequences of Saturday's loss to Cincinnati,
which took the Scarlet Knights out of the top 10, out of the ranks of the unbeaten,
and out of style. If the Empire State Building is lit up again in red, it figures
to be for Christmas, not for Rutgers.

The Scarlet Knights are now experiencing the downside of
college football prominence: the backlash that comes when high expectations are unmet.

UPDATE. Nov 30 -->

Paul Franklin of the Home News had some additional observations on Rutgers and the Texas Bowl. Interestingly, the NFL Network has exclusive rights to the Texas Bowl, the reason being that the Houston Texans own the game that is played at Reliant Stadium. However, rights to the game could be bought by a another network.
Franklin ends: Let's face it, Rutgers-Oklahoma State or Rutgers-Texas Tech, even on local TV [at the Texas Bowl, if Rutgers loses to WVU], would be a huge disappointment. Rutgers-LSU in the Sugar Bowl or Rutgers-Florida in the Orange Bowl, on national TV?

UPDATE.

Bloomberg reported on Dec. 18: The NFL Network accepted an offer by Time Warner Cable to televise Rutgers University's appearance in the Texas Bowl to about 75 percent of its customers in New York and New Jersey.
(...)
The NFL wants its channel to appear in basic-cable packages with ESPN and CNN, where it can reach the broadest audience. Time Warner wants to place the NFL Network in a sports package, or tier, where its audience would include only customers willing to pay extra.

The NFL Network said in a statement that about 75 percent of Time Warner's customers subscribe to the digital-basic tier, so the cable company's offer was the ``quickest and best way to bring Rutgers' appearance in the Texas Bowl to Time Warner subscribers and to make the free-view a reality.'' Rutgers is the state university of New Jersey.

The three-year-old NFL Network reaches about 41 million of the 90 million U.S. cable subscribers.

Cablevision has about 3.1 million subscribers in New York, the nation's biggest market. Time Warner has about 1.4 million subscribers in New York, 1.9 million in Los Angeles and another 10.2 in 33 states.