Deace On The Mark Regardng Bowl Games

[Wingback]

Steve Deace was absolutely and completely on the mark this morning on Miller and Deace regarding college bowl games.

A synopsis of his comments:

The BCS hasn't solved a thing except destroying bowl traditions, so let's scrap it and go back to the former system.

20 bowl games is a generous plenty, so let's just get rid of the rest of them (40 out of 120-some teams making bowls is plenty...it's obvious no one really cares about bowl games with an average attendance of 20 or 25,000 fans).

The minimum record required for a team to qualify for a bowl game should be 7-5. 6-6 should qualify you to sit on the sofa and watch from home.

I couldn't agree more!

 

[Cyfan322]

So since the current system doesn't solve anything we should go back to the former system that solved just as little? I say we scrap it and go to 8,12, or even 16 team playoff.

 

[Knownothing]

yeah I agree the bowl games have been ruined by the BCS. I say either a playoff or you go back to the days of big 12 get's the Orange. PAC 10 vs. Big 10 in the Rose and so on. The other is just have a playoff since it's already been ruined.

I always like the fact that if we scored first on OU or Nebby the student section would heave Oranges onto the field. It was just funny.

 

[DJK15]

I'd love to see the number of bowl games reduced to something like 20 (how many are their now? 40-ish?). They should actually mean something, the top 40 making a bowl game sounds fair.

Unfortunately, it'll never happen. If anything, we'll get more meaningless bowls like the SuperDog Stand Bowl live from Boone, IA. Too much $$$ involved.

 

[mj4cy]

what is so hard for NCAA folks to understand. Your fans (people who ultimately pay the bills) aren't happy. Fix it!

8 team playoff for the championship. You could still use the BCS (or some formula) to determine the top 8. It's much better to hva eteam #9 complain than teams #3,#4,#5 complain about missing the title game. You can still use the games in that bracket and call them traditional bowl games. You take the other teams with 7-5 records or better and let them just play bowl games.

 

[PGreen ISU '92]

The full push should still be toward scrapping bowls and implementing a 16-team playoff; 11 conference champions and 5 at-large teams.

 

[Wingback]

Guys, aside from the BCS Championship Game, the only bowl you can count on to have a capacity crowd every year, plus a very, very high television rating is the Rose Bowl (as much as it pains me to admit it). I don't think any one could deny that the reason for that is because, for the most part, they have been able to maintain their traditional conference tie ins.

Back when there were conference tie ins for the major bowls, who would have ever dreamed you would see the Orange Bowl less than filled. There have been numerous less than capacity crowds at the Orange Bowl since the formation of the BCS.

The BCS system has ruined the bowls. If they can't figure out a way to do a playoff, there is no question the old system was far and away better than what we have today!

 

[CycloneYoda]

Once ISU got smacked around in the Boise blue-turf smurf bowl, I have come to realization that without these meaningless, horrible games, ISU would have a tough time ever seeing a bowl game.

With that said, I hate all these small bowl games and tend not tofollow them.

 

[clones26]

When would we ever get to a bowl then? kind serious though. How did it work back in the day-Top 40 teams automatically in or a tie in like the Big 12 gets 4 teams which would be OU, texas, another south team and an up year for us?

 

[GaryJohnson]

There are currently 32 bowl games, I believe.

Institute the 12 or 16 team playoff. Incorporate the "top" eight bowl games or so if need be.
All the other bowls can still be played, they just wouldn't have any national title implications (just like now), and would basically just be exhibition games (just like now).

 

[capitalcityguy]

I agree with both their opinions that playoffs are not the way to go as it would water down the greatest regular season in sports. That said, I disagree on this whole notion of what is, and isn't, a "crappy bowl".
Does the existence of the Poinsettia Bowl or Humanitarian Bowl somehow make the Rose Bowl or Sugar Bowl less special? Does it affect the determination of a national champion?

I would think that anyone who loves college football should want the season to continue as long as possible. Using the argument that crappy bowls just match a couple crappy teams is odd as well. Using that argument, let's scrap the first couple weeks of the regular season too because there our tons of crappy matchups with inferior teams. Heck, maybe once the season starts and a team has lost too many games to assure at least a .500 season by season end, then any remaining games against teams in the same predicament (i.e.…two crappy teams), those games should be cancelled as not to subject anyone to crappy regular season matchup.

All bowls provide opportunities for teams to play that don't normally get a change to play…..and for that matter, for fans to travel to cities that they wouldn't normally get to go to. How's that a bad thing?

Bottom-line -- How do the so-called "crappy" bowls negatively affect anyone other than the teams and fans that participate in them?

 

[jdoggivjc]

what is so hard for NCAA folks to understand. Your fans (people who ultimately pay the bills) aren't happy. Fix it!

Corporations are paying the NCAA a lot of money through bowl sponsorships and payouts to schools and conferences in order to not fix it.

 

[Wingback]

When would we ever get to a bowl then? kind serious though. How did it work back in the day-Top 40 teams automatically in or a tie in like the Big 12 gets 4 teams which would be OU, texas, another south team and an up year for us?

For the most part, back in the day, only the major bowls had conference tie ins (Rose always had Big-10 champ and Pac-10 champ, Orange had Big-8 champ versus another undefeated or 1-loss type team from a major conference, Sugar had the SEC champ versus another great team, Cotton had the SWC champ, etc.). Once the major bowls got filled, the lesser bowls fought it out for the remaining teams. The bowl representatives fought for teams that traveled well and for great inter-sectional matchups. And some years the match-ups in bowls like the Liberty, Peach, Sun, etc. were outstanding.

 

[CycloneYoda]

I agree with both their opinions that playoffs are not the way to go as it would water down the greatest regular season in sports. That said, I disagree on this whole notion of what is, and isn't, a "crappy bowl".
Does the existence of the Poinsettia Bowl or Humanitarian Bowl somehow make the Rose Bowl or Sugar Bowl less special? Does it affect the determination of a national champion?

I would think that anyone who loves college football should want the season to continue as long as possible. Using the argument that crappy bowls just match a couple crappy teams is odd as well. Using that argument, let's scrap the first couple weeks of the regular season too because there our tons of crappy matchups with inferior teams. Heck, maybe once the season starts and a team has lost too many games to assure at least a .500 season by season end, then any remaining games against teams in the same predicament (i.e.…two crappy teams), those games should be cancelled as not to subject anyone to crappy regular season matchup.

All bowls provide opportunities for teams to play that don't normally get a change to play…..and for that matter, for fans to travel to cities that they wouldn't normally get to go to. How's that a bad thing?

Bottom-line -- How do the so-called "crappy" bowls negatively affect anyone other than the teams and fans that participate in them?

A bowl games used to reward excellence. Now bowl games represent the acceptance of rewarding mediocre behavior.

The American Way: Do just enough not to get fired.

 

[cyfanatic]

I watch some meaningless bowl games...mostly because many of them are on tv when nothing else is on! It isn't like they are going up against the NFL on Sunday afternoons. If the goal is to declare a champion of college football...yeah...most or all of these bowls are meaningless. But if the goal is to give college football fans something to watch on tv...fine by me. Some I will watch...some I won't. Doesn't hurt to watch them. But I do agree that the BCS system is not the best way to crown a champion!

 

[capitalcityguy]

A bowl games used to reward excellence. Now bowl games represent the acceptance of rewarding mediocre behavior.

The American Way: Do just enough not to get fired.

Instead of just handwaving to the arguement I put out there, why not answer the questions I raised?

 

[cyhiphopp]

There are some bad bowls out there (read: Boise) that probably could be scrapped, but to only have the top 40 teams get into bowls woudl perpetuate the rich get richer cycle that exists event now. There is no way anyone but the big dogs would make a bowl. The Mid Major teams sould be even worse off, because they generally don't travel as well and would be snubbed for BCS conference teams. I agree that there are some bowls that are not profitable and could get cut, but the point was made above that, even if they do not fill the stands, the fans that travel to see their team play, wouldn't have traveled to that city otherwise and are still spending money there. I love watching any college football I can even if there aren't huge crowds. I understand that in the good old days the stands were packed and the pagentry of the event was great, but the good old days are gone. There is enough intrest and sponsors now to play more games, period.

If a playoff system is implemented, they will probably only be able to do 8 teams max. Any more would require the champ to play too many games in a season and increase risk of injury to players. Also, I think, up until the championship game or the semifinals, that the playoff games would have to be at home sites for the higher seed. I can't see fans traveling to 4 different bowl destinations to watch the playoff games.

Thats just my two cents.

 

[mizouse87]

My opinion of how this should be handled.

Switch to an 8 team playoff using home fields (higher seed plays at home). You can still utilize the 4 major bowls once it gets down to 4 teams. 1v4, 2v3. Then 1v2 and 3v4 for champion and 3rd place game. Those four games could cycle between which "bcs" bowl is sponsoring it.

As for the other undeserving teams to make the playoff you can still implement a bowl system to let them play. So you can incorporate all of the current bowls (if not cut some down) and switch to a playoff system.

Also, keep in mind one of the main arguments about going to a playoff system is the amount of games played and how deep into the calendar year games will be played. To offset this argument teams would be expected to cut down their regular season back to a 10 or 11 game schedule and eliminate all bye weeks. This will ensure the STUDENT athletes are not pulled away from classes nor are they risking anything more than usual as far as injuries.

I apologize for the lack of direction in this post, I could explain this a lot better with more time but the fact of the matter is I believe it is very possible to make everybody happy by using a playoff but also having all the bowls which is how the money rolls in.

 

[Clones85']

what is so hard for NCAA folks to understand. Your fans (people who ultimately pay the bills) aren't happy. Fix it!

8 team playoff for the championship. You could still use the BCS (or some formula) to determine the top 8. It's much better to hva eteam #9 complain than teams #3,#4,#5 complain about missing the title game. You can still use the games in that bracket and call them traditional bowl games. You take the other teams with 7-5 records or better and let them just play bowl games.

Fans ***** and complain but why would the NCAA care? That just means people are talking about it more and that is always a good thing. People still watch all the bowl games and especially the good ones.

Really the NCAA could do whatever they want and fans would still watch the games. Nobody is going anywhere (in regards to the fans)

 

[NebrClone]

You forgot the bacis premise for bowls and NCAA. It is making money, has nothing to do with a crowning a true national champion.