Birmingham Bowl - what a cluster

[Jaxcat]

Ga Southern, at 6-6, accepted a bid. No other 6-win team was available. The bowl had to reach out to 5-7 teams (several of which declined) before App St agreed to play in the bowl. Is that what 'Bowl Season' has come to? A low-level 6-6 team playing a team that lost more games than it won? Who in their right mind would attend and/or view it on TV? This is just an egregious example, but having two 6-6 or one 7-5 and one 6-6 team play in a 'bowl' is ridiculous. It means nothing.

I would guess that most participating schools LOSE money on bowls like this. Local interest, for the most part, has to be slightly above nil. With the CFP now making conference championship games less and less meaningful, isn't it way past time to get rid of at least half the bowl games? The historically 'big' bowl games are now part of the CFP rotation, so several of those bowls are spoken for from the outset. Maybe require 7 wins to go to a bowl? Among 7- and 8-win teams, I believe you could find some palatable matchups. But, pairing two very low level teams with .500 records - I don't think so. If the schools are losing money, who is making money? And, if the schools aren't making money off of their bowl, why go? Why even hold the 'event'?

And many of these bowls have been held only for a decade or so. You can't make the argument about 'tradition' of the Yankee Bowl or other such nonsense bowls.

[Davidmack]

There are too many bowl games

[Pobilly]

Playoff is more popular than normal bowl games. Once the playoff moved to 12 teams the bowl game era started to wither away. You will see more issues like this for the lesser bowls until they just quit playing that bowl. Orange, Sugar, Cotton, Rose, Peach, Gator and such will be part of the playoffs. That will be about it for bowls. Maybe a few extra around the holidays but not many.

[Pete Hogwallop]

If it's football, I'll watch it!

I'm actually impressed that App St. stepped up to play. In this day and age, it's much more common to see teams, groups, people, etc. opt-out or cancel.

[Davidmack]

All the playoff games should be bowl games.

[bthaunert]

They just need to take a page from the FCS system and change it drastically.

• There is no need for 2 bye weeks - regular season this year should have wrapped up on November 22
• November 29 would have been conference championship games, if a conference chooses to have a championship game. Just like in basketball, a conference can send their regular season or conference championship game winner to the playoff.
• 24 team playoff, just like they have in FCS. No bowl games outside of that.
• 9 automatic bids for all conference champions and 15 at-large bids. This way all conferences are represented in the post-season even when you get rid of traditional bowl games.
• Top 8 teams get a bye
• First round games on-site at host schools on December 6th
• Second round games on-site at host schools on December 13th
• Quarterfinals at bowl sites on December 20th
• Semifinals at bowl sites on January 1
• National Championship game on January 12th

This year would have been (based on CFP rankings/conference champions)

Round 1
#9 Alabama hosting #24 Western Michigan
#10 Miami hosting #23 Kennesaw State
#11 Notre Dame hosting #22 Boise State
#12 BYU hosting #21 Duke
#13 Texas hosting #20 JMU
#14 Vandy hosting #19 Tulane
#15 Utah hosting #18 Michigan
#16 USC hosting #17 Arizona

Round 2 (assuming home teams win)
#1 IU hosting #16 USC
#2 OSU hosting #15 Utah
#3 Georgia hosting #14 Vandy
#4 Texas Tech hosting #13 Texas
#5 Oregon hosting #12 BYU
#6 Ole Miss hosting #11 Notre Dame
#7 Texas A&M hosting #10 Miami
#8 Oklahoma hosting #9 Alabama

[The-Hack]

We live in a market-driven world, and I would like to watch every bowl game. I’m just a sucker for College football.

When no one profits, the number of bowl games will contract.

And the truly “minor” bowls let players with little more athleticism (but more ambition) than I once possessed, get a minute or two on National TV.

So pass the pop tarts and cheese-it’s, my friends, and don’t block my view of a 5 foot, 10 inch kid with 5.1 speed catching a TD pass for Old State North-West By South-East U!!!!

[Jaxcat]

They just need to take a page from the FCS system and change it drastically.

• There is no need for 2 bye weeks - regular season this year should have wrapped up on November 22
• November 29 would have been conference championship games, if a conference chooses to have a championship game. Just like in basketball, a conference can send their regular season or conference championship game winner to the playoff.
• 24 team playoff, just like they have in FCS. No bowl games outside of that.
• 9 automatic bids for all conference champions and 15 at-large bids. This way all conferences are represented in the post-season even when you get rid of traditional bowl games.
• Top 8 teams get a bye
• First round games on-site at host schools on December 6th
• Second round games on-site at host schools on December 13th
• Quarterfinals at bowl sites on December 20th
• Semifinals at bowl sites on January 1
• National Championship game on January 12th

This year would have been (based on CFP rankings/conference champions)

Round 1
#9 Alabama hosting #24 Western Michigan
#10 Miami hosting #23 Kennesaw State
#11 Notre Dame hosting #22 Boise State
#12 BYU hosting #21 Duke
#13 Texas hosting #20 JMU
#14 Vandy hosting #19 Tulane
#15 Utah hosting #18 Michigan
#16 USC hosting #17 Arizona

Round 2 (assuming home teams win)
#1 IU hosting #16 USC
#2 OSU hosting #15 Utah
#3 Georgia hosting #14 Vandy
#4 Texas Tech hosting #13 Texas
#5 Oregon hosting #12 BYU
#6 Ole Miss hosting #11 Notre Dame
#7 Texas A&M hosting #10 Miami
#8 Oklahoma hosting #9 Alabama

Several of those 24 teams have 3 losses. In what universe should they even have the chance of winning a NC? It reduces the importance of the regular season drastically, imo, much the same way March Madness has done. WMU? Kennesaw St? Who exactly is clamoring to watch those teams get annihilated? And, who thinks either of those teams are as good as TN or Iowa or...? The playoffs would become a joke.

Plus, even the top 8 teams could end up playing 17 games. That's too much for CFB, imo.

I don't doubt that the CFP will expand, but I believe it dilutes the product and makes the regular season less important. I mean, we've had 5-7 teams going to bowls. How much more irrelevant can the regular season get? Let's just start with 134 team tournament from the get-go and really have a tournament.

[bthaunert]

Several of those 24 teams have 3 losses. In what universe should they even have the chance of winning a NC? It reduces the importance of the regular season drastically, imo, much the same way March Madness has done. WMU? Kennesaw St? Who exactly is clamoring to watch those teams get annihilated? And, who thinks either of those teams are as good as TN or Iowa or...? The playoffs would become a joke.

Plus, even the top 8 teams could end up playing 17 games. That's too much for CFB, imo.

I don't doubt that the CFP will expand, but I believe it dilutes the product and makes the regular season less important. I mean, we've had 5-7 teams going to bowls. How much more irrelevant can the regular season get? Let's just start with 134 team tournament from the get-go and really have a tournament.

For me, it's around a way to include conferences in the process while the current bowl system crumbles in front of us. All NCAA sports have teams qualifying that don't have a chance to win it all...except 1. FBS is the only exception to that and it's a hot mess right now. The current system is completely antiquated and needs a massive overhaul.

As for number of games...FCS teams play 12 regular season games and have a 24 team playoff system. It works GREAT, allows every conference to get a team in and there is zero pushback from the number of games played.

Why the pushback from people to do what every other sport in college does, including every other level of college football...introduce an expanded playoff system.

Because it's different? Because that's not what we've done before? Why not adopt what works so well for every single other team sport?

[Pobilly]

No matter how you look at it the playoff/bowl games have to work from the week before christmas to the week after new years. Most people have days off / vacation planned to do things with family, watch games and such. Basketball takes a back set around that time (camp cal) and such with minor games round that time. Conf Play really ramps up after Jan 1. That is why you will see the 12 team or maybe a 16 team playoff total and some bowl games, money (TV money drives all of this). None of this is for the teams or fans. It is for TV shares or stream shares as we start moving forward. Pretty soon we will see the NCAA tourney have it own broadcast and streaming services will pick up said broadcasts. If you follow a team or a region you will be able to setup your viewing pleasures.

[Jaxcat]

^BT, I understand your position. But, let's say Bama's QB or Beck at Miami get hurt during what amounts to a glorified scrimmage (in much the same way that #1 v #16 in BB are usually complete blowouts). Their chances from that point on are greatly reduced and for what? To beat the snot out of some no-name, G5 team?

And let's say a team with 4 losses ends up winning it all, which could happen. I may be in the minority, but I want the champion to be the best, not the team that happened to catch a couple of great teams on a bad day, horrible weather or after a major injury. If you've got 4 losses in 12 games, regardless of who those losses are to, I cannot view you as the 'champion', i.e,, the best. And, for me, that entire regular season would have been played for naught.

You and I aren't going to agree and, for sure, with the money involved, the NCAA will expand the playoffs. I believe it will dilute the product and I know it will suck out even more of the excitement I have had for college football for 55 years. With the rate my attachment to CFB is being leeched away, it may not be but another 3-5 years that I give it up altogether.

[bthaunert]

^BT, I understand your position. But, let's say Bama's QB or Beck at Miami get hurt during what amounts to a glorified scrimmage (in much the same way that #1 v #16 in BB are usually complete blowouts). Their chances from that point on are greatly reduced and for what? To beat the snot out of some no-name, G5 team?

And let's say a team with 4 losses ends up winning it all, which could happen. I may be in the minority, but I want the champion to be the best, not the team that happened to catch a couple of great teams on a bad day, horrible weather or after a major injury. If you've got 4 losses in 12 games, regardless of who those losses are to, I cannot view you as the 'champion', i.e,, the best. And, for me, that entire regular season would have been played for naught.

You and I aren't going to agree and, for sure, with the money involved, the NCAA will expand the playoffs. I believe it will dilute the product and I know it will suck out even more of the excitement I have had for college football for 55 years. With the rate my attachment to CFB is being leeched away, it may not be but another 3-5 years that I give it up altogether.

So much of it for me is we are just used to what has been done. It's like when the NCAA basketball tournament got expanded to 64 teams in 1985...I bet a lot of the same arguments that you have were being had then too.

I'm coming from a viewpoint of the current structure does not work...we both agree on that. I just happen to think getting rid of antiquated traditional bowl games and think having the 9 conference champions and 15 at-large teams makes some good sense, because a similar concept is done on every other level and in every other sport and works great.

You're right that we are on different sides of the aisle on this one. Plus, with 15 at-large, we might have a shot at makin the playoffs one year.

[Jaxcat]

^I saw that the NCAA is considering expanding March Madness to as many as 74 (76? I can't recall) teams now. Still think that's a good idea? Look at the NBA where they play 81 games to eliminate only half the teams. It's not unusual for a team who hasn't won half their games to make the 'playoffs'...after 82 regular season games! It's insanity. Why not reduce the regular season to 50 games and then seed them in each conference and have every team in the 'tournament'?

I believe the bowl model has completely outlived its relevance - we agree on that. They could/should do away with about half the bowls and, honestly, hardly anyone would notice. At least you'd have to have a successful season to go to a bowl vs. now when even teams that didn't win half their games can go bowling.

If/when they expand, I hope they'll give a bigger advantage to the top teams (maybe 2 byes or a bye and host a home game) to reward teams who have done exceptionally well in the regular season. Under the scenario you posited above, the #1 seed has to play the same number of games and different venues as the #8 when, presumably, the #1 team had a significantly better regular season than did #8. Yes, they would play a lower seed but, imo, there is generally not the gulf of difference between #9 and #18 most years as there is #1 and #8. That's not always true, of course, but I believe it generally holds true.

Anyway, good discussion and you made some very solid points without condescension, insults, etc. Kudos!

[The-Hack]

[QUOTE=Jaxcat;n404104]^I saw that the NCAA is considering expanding March Madness to as many as 74 (76? I can't recall) teams now. Still think that's a good idea?”

Smells like a money making
idea for the NCAA.