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Story Archives: Playoff? We're talking playoff?
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Playoff? We're talking playoff?
Now we're getting somewhere.
Apparently there is growing support among the people who count (obviously not you and me) to increase the difficulty of becoming bowl eligible by requiring teams to have seven victories, or a winning record, when the new BCS cycle begins in 2014.
The seven-win requirement means a handful of bowls likely would be discontinued because there would not be enough eligible teams to fill all of the current 70 berths. I doubt we'll lose a lot of sleep over that one.
In the past two years alone, 27 teams with 6-6 records were needed to fill all the bowl slots, meaning nearly 20 percent of the bowl field didn't have a winning record.
This past year 13 of the 70 bowl teams did not have more than six wins. It was 14 in 2010 and single digits the previous four years when there were two or four less bowls.
So who would have been left out this past year? Arizona State (lost to Boise State 56-24 in Maaco Bowl in Las Vegas), Marshall (beat Florida International 20-10 in Beef O'Brady's Bowl in St. Petersburg), Purdue (beat Western Michigan 37-32 in Little Caesars Bowl in Detroit), Iowa State (lost to Rutgers 27-13 in New Era Pinstripe Bowl in the Bronx), Texas A&M and Northwestern (Aggies beat Northwestern 33-22 in Meineke Car Care Bowl in Houston), Illinois and UCLA (Illini beat UCLA 20-14 in Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl in San Francsico), Vanderbilt (lost to Cincinnati 31-24 in AutoZone Liberty Bowl in Memphis), Ohio State and Florida (Gators beat Buckeyes 24-17 in Gator Bowl in Jacksonville and Pittsburgh (lost to SMU 28-6 in BBVA Compass Bowl in Birmingham.
The guess is that 12 of the current 35 bowls would go by the wayside. The tough part about that is a number of conferences initially created these bowls to guarantee their teams would have one to play in.
ESPN also has created and runs seven bowls that the network utilizes as programming. Gosh, less Lou Holtz?
In the past six seasons, the SEC has won a record six consecutive BCS national titles. But the SEC also is tied with the Big Ten as the conference with the most 6-6 bowl teams (nine each). The ACC is next with eight.
The Independence Bowl has had seven 6-6 teams in six years, including consecutive games in 2006 and 2007 featuring two of them.
This past season ended a string of five consecutive years for the Independence Bowl with a 6-6 team playing in Shreveport.
Missouri defeated North Carolina 41-24 in December before a lot of empty seats, thanks largely to a steady rain that day.
The bad news for some teams is that fewer teams would be able to take advantage of the additional practices allowed. These mostly benefit younger players and help schools prepare for next season.
There's a simple solution there (then again, nothing is simple when it comes to the BCS). Allow every team to participate in the same number of December practices whether it goes to a bowl or not.
The world of athletics around us is changing. Players are more about themselves (see shirt opening gesture), commercials are lasting longer, networks are spending more time promoting their shows.
And somewhere in there is a football game.
I would love to see it go back to the simpler days when Chris Schenkel was simply saying what was going on between the goal lines and they actually showed the bands at halftime. I don't remember seeing 80,000 or 90,000 people leave their seats at halftime.
But it's a different game and everyone wants a piece of the pie.
Now hopefully the college football teams themselves will have to earn that piece. |
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