Running bowl thread

My complaint about "too many bowls" is that it used to be really special to see a bowl game, and it was a big accomplishment for a team to make one. When I first became aware of bowl games as a kid, there were maybe 16 or 17 of them, and teams had to have good winning records (7-4 frequently meant teams missed out) in order to make it. The whole 'Teams have won 5 straight bowl games' thing, to me, is rather meaningless, when you have teams making a bowl with a 6-6 record every year.

Now, every team, including .500 teams, make it. It's watered down the system majorly.

 

All these extra weeks of bowl practice have improved the overall
product markedly. For that reason alone . . .

 

I'm ambivalent about it. Yes, there are too many bowls and too many 6-6 teams playing in them. But at the same time, there are teams that otherwise wouldn't see the light of day that are getting virtually exclusive exposure every night in December.

In the old system with 10 bowls, you had better teams playing, but you wore out the click-click-click channel changer seeing them all play in the same time slots on Christmas Day or New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. And teams a notch below the top 20, like Nebraska, West Virginia and BYU, would be sitting home.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely would rather see a playoff. But I enjoy the three-week-long last spasm of college football too. I wouldn't mind incorporating the major bowls into a playoff and keeping the lesser bowls for the up-and-comers.

 

But all those empty seats don't lie - and this year there have been plenty at every game I've watched part of.

And more importantly, I wouldn't mind bowl games if the rule was made very simple - a team must have seven wins against Division I-A competition. Then you would at least be rewarding teams which had good seasons.

What the hell does a team like Rutgers - 8 wins, with two against Division I-AA and another against Florida International, or worse, South Florida, two wins over Division I-AA and seven wins overall -- deserve to be in the postseason for?

 

Why do you hate the State College of New Jersey? Ha.

Anyhoo, Rutgers will be pretty damn good next year, and QB Savage is going to be very good, perhaps elite, by his junior year.

 

No question they are on their way back and will have a very good team NEXT year.

But they were butt cheese this year yet are going to the postseason (actually already played their game like Dec. 8th or something) because they scheduled a bunch of I-AA teams and low level I-A teams in their non-conference.

 

I'd agree. Two wins against JV squads is nothing to hang your hat on, ever. They were really young on offense this year. This was more of a rebuilding season, yet they won 9 games thanks mostly to the defense, and then the maturation of the offense.

Savage and Sanu. Gonna great a great combo.

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So if my memory serves correct, this would be USC's and BC's first matchup since the season opener a long time ago ... when I was a teenager in '87 or '88.

 

If you're in the Bay Area, Xan, plenty of good seats are available ...

Once again, ESPN will be challenged to find camera angles that don't show thousands of empty seats during the Emerald Bowl.

 

If I were in the Bay area, I'd definitely walk into the game. Unfortunately, I'm 3,000 miles the other way. USC football is my favorite of all my favorite teams. And yet, I've never seen the Trojans play in person. That is just sad.

 

Hey, just wait for that college football playoff, when USC comes across the country to face the Big East champ in a second-round game ... :

Seriously, I think USC-BC (and Pitt-NC, for that matter) will be good games. But not many USC fans will be motivated by a Dec. 26 bowl game, and as you note, that's an awful long drive across I-90 and I-80 for BC backers.

 

We're a week out from the International Bowl (big whoop, I know you're saying, but hey, Huggy Jr and I are looking forward to it) and I have seen squat in the way of stories in the Toronto papers on it.

Will be interesting to see what kind of crowd is there. Last year was a huge success with UConn and Buffalo both travelling well, but who knows what kind of fan suport USF and Northern Illinois will bring.

 

It would be pretty funny if Pitt lost 3-0, again.