Bowl Bloat: It's killing college football

[Indy Coug]

The oversaturation of bowl games is just another example of "less being more", or rather "more being less". Due to the NCAA inducement to schedule more 1-AA teams, more than 50% of all D-1A teams go to bowl games. In the last 10 years, the number of bowls has increased by 60%.

This is the reason why BYU has been forced into a ridiculous rematch with a UCLA team that is in complete disarray. The oversaturation of bowl games has resulted in essentially zero surplus of bowl eligible teams to fill the open slots.

10 to 15 years ago, the end of the regular season was accompanied by the hyper-competitive environment of bowls trying to lock down the best matchups they could before quality teams accepted a bid from someone else. Bowls had some automatic tie-ins, but they were fewer in number. As a result of the overexpansion of bowl games, this forced virtually every bowl to contractually lock in both bowl opponents before the season even began.

Here are the number of bowl games by season, dating back to 1965.


1966 - 8
1967 - 9
1968 - 11
1976 - 12
1977 - 13
1978 - 15
1981 - 16
1984 - 18
1993 - 19
1996 - 18 (10-2 Wyoming left out in the cold)
1997 - 20
1998 - 22
1999 - 23
2000 - 25
2002 - 28
2005 - 28 (all D-1AA victories count towards bowl eligibility)
2006 - 32 (regular season expanded to 12 games)

The days of using bowl games appearances as a recruiting tool are over: everyone goes to a bowl game now. It has little added value.

The days of BYU playing top 10 or 15 teams in bowl games like Iowa, Ohio State, Kansas State, Penn State, let alone Marshall and Tulane, are essentially over.

The bowl system is broken. The BCS once again has failed to fulfill its lofty aspirations. The non-BCS bowls are chock full of one or more opponents that have no business playing and offer nothing in the way of national interest or excitement, and often neither on the local level either.

The universities need to push back on the NCAA. They need to do at the bare minimum:

1. Eliminate the bowl bloat by raising the bar on what constitutes a bowl eligible team. Go back to the every other year 1-AA rule that existed pre-2005.

1A. Put limitations on contractually guaranteeing bowl bids. Force and/or allow bowls to have the flexibility to produce more meaningful bowl matchups.

2. Adopt an 8 or preferably 16 team playoff system. This season highlights why the current BCS championship game, or even the tepid "Plus One" proposal are simply inadequate mechanisms if the NCAA is truly interested in finding the best college football team instead of the painfully transparent farce they've foisted on its membership schools and the general public.

The current arrangement is hurting college football. It's inducing schools, big and small, to resort to abysmal nonconference scheduling. Despite the recent appearance of non-BCS schools in the BCS bowls, the chasm between the haves and have-nots is expanding; for example, the continued push of the non-BCS schools to the fringes of TV coverage (MTN, appearances on every day BUT Saturday, etc.). And it's inflicting irreparable harm, if nothing is done to change the current direction of things, on postseason football.

[MikeWaters]

what they should do is match up the conference champions in the two highest ranked (by computer) conferences.

That would incentivize good scheduling.

[BYU71]

The whole bowl system is not interested in getting the best teams playing each other.

[MikeWaters]

The bowl system is about money and risk management. Hence all the tie-ins.

If MWC has 5 teams going to bowls, even if they are crappy, then Craig Thompson pats himself on the back, and the university presidents pat him on the back as well.

[DrumNFeather]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

The bowl system is about money and risk management. Hence all the tie-ins.

If MWC has 5 teams going to bowls, even if they are crappy, then Craig Thompson pats himself on the back, and the university presidents pat him on the back as well.

Exactly.

And next summer at the MWC football media blitz when Craig is asked about the lack of tv coverage impacting the MWC he can say, "Well, we had 5 teams go to bowl games last year, more than in any other year, so the conference is as good and as healthy as ever."

[jay santos]

The first answer is to eliminate all bowl committees. They are the scum of the earth and financial drain on NCAA.

Whether you want playoff or bowls, NCAA selection committee should be in charge and NCAA should run it all.

[MikeWaters]

Bowl selection should be a draft. You get your draft position based on your payout. Every team agrees to abide by the draft. That would be some drama, and hopefully would create better matchups.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

I could not agree more. I looked through the bowls last night and if you take out the BYU and Oregon bowls there are 2-3 bowls that have any interest at all.

[TripletDaddy]

Originally Posted by HuskyFreeNorthwest

I could not agree more. I looked through the bowls last night and if you take out the BYU and Oregon bowls there are 2-3 bowls that have any interest at all.

I plan on hitting the BYU game and the SC game. I will watch the LSU/Luckeyes game to root against The Ohio State.

Other than that, I cant think of any other bowl games I really care about watching. Georgia/Hawaii maybe, for the non-BCS curiosity factor?

I will likely wind up watching several, but I dont really care about them beforehand. More like something to have on in the background as we eat or hang out at home.