Buy/Sell: Bowl eligibility rules should be overhauled.

[QuaoarsKing]

Currently, going 6-6 or better gets you a bowl (except for a couple of MAC or Sun Belt teams usually); while 5-7 means no bowl, regardless of schedule. Unfortunately, this only incentivizes making schedules as easy as possible. Playing Oklahoma State in a neutral site game next year sounds awesome, except it might knock us down the bowl ladder or out of it entirely. Most athletic departments schedule with that logic.

I propose that the top 64 teams from some kind of computer formula that includes SOS are eligible for bowls, regardless of their record. No more teams like MSU 2009 and Oregon State 2010 that are probably around the 35th best team in the country staying home because they overscheduled out of conference. No more awful Sun Belt and CUSA teams getting bowls because they beat 6 nobodies while the SEC teams who shellacked them stay home. Fewer boring blowouts against cupcakes all across college football.

 

[FlabLoser]

Where is the money in that?

 

[patdog]

Are you really suggesting that 5-7 teams should get bowl bids? Why not just do away with bowl eligibility altogether and have 60 bowls? If anything, they need to change the rules to require 7 wins to qualify for a bowl. Who cares if a few ****** 7-5 Sunbelt teams get a meaningless bowl? Nobody has to watch, and very few will.

 

[QuaoarsKing]

If a 5-7 team played a tough schedule (like us in 2009 or Oregon State in 2010), then they at least deserve it more than a 6-6 team who played nobody.

Are you really suggesting we were better team in 2011 than in 2009?


ETA:
All biases aside, which of these two teams deserved a bowl more in 2009:
Mississippi State:

Date	Time	Opponent[SUP]#[/SUP]	Rank[SUP]#[/SUP]	Site	TV	Result	Attendance
September 5	2:30 p.m.	Jackson State*		Davis Wade Stadium • Starkville, MS	ESPNU	W 45–7	54,232[SUP][1][/SUP]
September 12	6:00 p.m.	at Auburn		Jordan-Hare Stadium • Auburn, AL	FSN	L 24–49	85,269[SUP][2][/SUP]
September 19	6:00 p.m.	at Vanderbilt		Vanderbilt Stadium • Nashville, TN	FSN	W 15–3	31,840[SUP][3][/SUP]
September 26	11:21 a.m.	#7 LSU		Davis Wade Stadium • Starkville, MS	SEC Network	L 26–30	53,612[SUP][4][/SUP]
October 3	6:30 p.m.	#25 Georgia Tech*		Davis Wade Stadium • Starkville, MS	CSS	L 31–42	50,035[SUP][5][/SUP]
October 10	11:30 a.m.	Houston*		Davis Wade Stadium • Starkville, MS	ESPNU	L 24–31	48,019[SUP][6][/SUP]
October 17	11:30 a.m.	at Middle Tennessee*		Johnny "Red" Floyd Stadium • Murfreesboro, TN	ESPNU	W 27–6	23,882[SUP][7][/SUP]
October 24	6:30 p.m.	#1 Florida		Davis Wade Stadium • Starkville, MS	ESPN	L 19–29	57,178[SUP][8][/SUP]
October 31	6:00 p.m.	at Kentucky		Commonwealth Stadium • Lexington, KY	FSN	W 31–24	67,953[SUP][9][/SUP]
November 14	6:00 p.m.	#2 Alabama		Davis Wade Stadium • Starkville, MS (Mississippi State-Alabama Rivalry)	ESPN	L 3–31	58,103[SUP][10][/SUP]
November 21	11:21 a.m.	at Arkansas		War Memorial Stadium • Little Rock, AR	SEC Network	L 21–42	55,634[SUP][11][/SUP]
November 28	11:21 a.m.	#25 Ole Miss		Davis Wade Stadium • Starkville, MS (Egg Bowl)	SEC Network	W 41–27	55,365[SUP][12] [/SUP]

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Kentucky:

September 5	12:00 PM	vs. Miami (OH)*		Paul Brown Stadium • Cincinnati, OH (Rumble on the River)	ESPNU	W 42–0	41,037[SUP][7][/SUP]
September 19	12:00 PM	Louisville*		Commonwealth Stadium • Lexington, KY (Battle for the Governor's Cup)	ESPNU	W 31–27	70,988[SUP][8][/SUP]
September 26	6:00 PM	#1 Florida		Commonwealth Stadium • Lexington, KY	ESPN2	L 7–41	71,011[SUP][9][/SUP]
October 3	12:21 PM	#3 Alabama		Commonwealth Stadium • Lexington, KY	SEC Network	L 20–38	70,967[SUP][10][/SUP]
October 10	12:30 PM	at #25 South Carolina		Williams-Brice Stadium • Columbia, SC	FSN	L 26–28	68,278[SUP][11][/SUP]
October 17	7:30 PM	at Auburn		Jordan-Hare Stadium • Auburn, AL	ESPNU	W 21–14	86,217[SUP][12][/SUP]
October 24	7:00 PM	Louisiana-Monroe*		Commonwealth Stadium • Lexington, KY (Military Appreciation Day)	FSN	W 36–13	68,203[SUP][13][/SUP]
October 31	7:00 PM	Mississippi State		Commonwealth Stadium • Lexington, KY	FSN	L 24–31	67,953[SUP][14][/SUP]
November 7	1:00 PM	Eastern Kentucky*		Commonwealth Stadium • Lexington, KY	BBSN	W 37–12	67,053[SUP][15][/SUP]
November 14	12:21 PM	at Vanderbilt		Vanderbilt Stadium • Nashville, TN	SEC Network	W 24–13	33,675[SUP][16][/SUP]
November 21	7:45 PM	at Georgia		Between the Hedges • Athens, GA	ESPN2	W 34–27	92,746[SUP][17][/SUP]
November 28	7:00 PM	Tennessee		Commonwealth Stadium • Lexington, KY (Senior Day)	ESPNU	L 24–30 [SUP]OT[/SUP]	70,981[SUP][18][/SUP]

<tbody>
</tbody>

All the 6-6 requirement does is make teams schedule weakly. Letting a good 5-7 team who scheduled hard in over a 6-6 team who beat nobody is the best way to have more interesting games.

 

[engie]

Are you really suggesting that 5-7 teams should get bowl bids? Why not just do away with bowl eligibility altogether and have 60 bowls? If anything, they need to change the rules to require 7 wins to qualify for a bowl. Who cares if a few ****** 7-5 Sunbelt teams get a meaningless bowl? Nobody has to watch, and very few will.

7-5 is an absolutely terrible rule, and he already told you why. You just chose to see the "5-7" statement and run with that instead of critically thinking about the implications of what he was saying, which I agree with(although I don't really want to see 5-7 teams go bowling either).

A post I wrote awhile back on this topic, using research from last bowl season:

Disagree with the idea of using this as a flat baseline to all teams. I agree that there are too many bowls. Instead, let's eliminate 20 bowl teams and take the top 50 overall teams in the BCS standings, regardless of win total. Or name a number of teams to take, doesn't matter. But let's do it on some metric other than win total.

The reason that going to 7 wins as the baseline is a bad idea, is that it will farther skew the bowls toward the mid-level non-bcs teams, while eliminating bowls for mid-level big6 teams. No way that would make for a "better" bowl season. If you apply this rule, you cut down on number of bowls, but also cut down on bowl interest by an equal or greater margin, and actually still end up with a bowl schedule that is just as diluted as before... Not to mention what it would do to the ooc scheduling amongst the BCS "have-nots"(read, NEVER playing an OOC game with a likely chance of losing)...

Applying a 7-win floor to this past season:
Eliminated: Ohio St
Florida
Mississippi State
Illinois
Ucla
Vanderbilt
Wake Forest
Iowa St
Purdue
Arizona St
Marshall
Pittsburgh

Added: Western Ky.

You get rid of one non-bcs team, but you add one non-bcs team to offset this. You then lose 11 BCS bowl teams, including several bigtime names that drive bowl season. Bad for business...

 

[patdog]

I Understood his post. There's no doubt that a 5-7 SEC team is going to be a better team than pretty much any 6-6 team in the country outside the SEC. Not even close. But I don't care. There's no room for losing teams in bowls. There's just not. It's bad enough that 6-6 teams make bowl games and finish 6-7. Let's not compound it.

 

[QuaoarsKing]

And that mindset, the "There's no room for losing teams in bowls," is why most every team plays a ***** schedule. If that idea were replaced, the whole season would be a lot more fun.

 

[patdog]

The season is plenty of fun like it is. There are plenty of great matchups every single week. And it's going to get even more fun with the 4-team playoff coming. Considering how tough our conference schedule is, I'm a lot happier playing a ***** non-conference schedule and winning games than I would be playing a tough non-conference schedule and going to a bowl game at 5-7.

 

[engie]

So you prefer to play an extra cupcake, get to 6 wins, and go to a crappy bowl over playing an extra primetime nationwide game, getting 5 wins, and going to(likely) the same crappy bowl?

This type of change would help us overall...in that it gives a greater margin for error for a single slip up(or primetime game) with no downside.

How could his proposal hurt us?

 

[NewTweederEndzoneDance]

Post-season is for winning teams. Period. The End.

I really don't give two ***** who you play. If you do not win more than you lose (or at least be 6-6 under the current format), then you have no business going to a bowl game. Suggesting otherwise just sounds like sour grapes. Don't like the fact that you are sitting at home at 5-7, while another team who is not as good as you are plays in a bowl at 6-6? SACK THE 17 UP AND WIN ANOTHER 17'ING GAME.

Let's not continue to expand the Pussification of American into the college bowl system. This is the most Mississippi State discussion I can imagine.

 

[patdog]

I'd rather get a win than take a loss. Losing a game to Southern Cal wouldn't do a damn thing for our football program. I'd rather win one against a Sunbelt team every week.

Of course a 5-7 bowl eligible rule would help MSU. But, speaking as a college football fan, it's a terrible rule. And really, even as an MSU fan, if we go 5-7 I just want the season to be over.

 

[patdog]

The team that didn't 17 up and lose a non-conference game they should have won deserves to be in the bowl game.

 

[QuaoarsKing]

Pussification is letting teams go 2-6 in their conference and schedule 4 laughable nonconference games and still go to a bowl. Letting a team who had a schedule of 12 tough games and won 5 still go to a bowl is the opposite -- rewarding them for not being pussies.

Kentucky was the "*****" in 2009, not us. Yet they got the bowl because of it.

 

[QuaoarsKing]

I'd rather get a win than take a loss. Losing a game to Southern Cal wouldn't do a damn thing for our football program. I'd rather win one against a Sunbelt team every week.

Of course a 5-7 bowl eligible rule would help MSU. But, speaking as a college football fan, it's a terrible rule. And really, even as an MSU fan, if we go 5-7 I just want the season to be over.

So if the rules allowed us to go to a bowl in 2009, you would have not wanted it? After going 3-5 in SEC games and slapping Ole Miss around, and playing a really tough non-conference schedule that caused us to end up 5-7, and watching "*****" teams that we beat go to bowls without beating anyone (Kentucky, MTSU), you seriously didn't wish we could have one too? You seriously would have preferred we sit at home even if we could have gone to one?

 

[Bulldog from Birth]

That'd be wonderful

Then we can watch 5-7 Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas A&M, Missouri, etc. teams go to better bowl games than a 6-6 or 7-5 MSU squad.

BFB

 

[NewTweederEndzoneDance]

By this logic, an SEC team could play 4 middle of the road

OOC teams, win them all and then go 1-7 in conference and go to a bowl game simply because the strength of schedule is high. You really think a 1-7 conference team deserves a bowl game?

Kentucky still plays in the SEC, its not like they played 12 easy games. We should not have been rewarded for going 5-7, no matter who we played. If we think we should have gone to a bowl, Tyson Lee should have thrown that pass 4 inches higher.

Like I said, this argument just reeks of "We are Miss. State, we can't compete with the big boys, so we need some help".

 

[johnson86-1]

Having 6-6 teams in bowls is already stretching it.

Currently, going 6-6 or better gets you a bowl (except for a couple of MAC or Sun Belt teams usually); while 5-7 means no bowl, regardless of schedule. Unfortunately, this only incentivizes making schedules as easy as possible. Playing Oklahoma State in a neutral site game next year sounds awesome, except it might knock us down the bowl ladder or out of it entirely. Most athletic departments schedule with that logic.

I propose that the top 64 teams from some kind of computer formula that includes SOS are eligible for bowls, regardless of their record. No more teams like MSU 2009 and Oregon State 2010 that are probably around the 35th best team in the country staying home because they overscheduled out of conference. No more awful Sun Belt and CUSA teams getting bowls because they beat 6 nobodies while the SEC teams who shellacked them stay home. Fewer boring blowouts against cupcakes all across college football.

Had we gone 6-6 in 2009, we would have deserved to be in a bowl. Honestly last year, I'm not sure we had the type season that deserved a bowl game, although I'm glad we got to go. If we were going to modify the bowl eligibility rules, we should require that you be in an AQ conference to go at 6-6, or require that 6-6 teams can only be bowl eligible if 2 wins came against teams from AQ conferences, although that would be a huge handout to the weaker AQ teams.

 

[maroonmadman]

Let's just create a special bowl for them.

It could be called the 'Moral Victory Bowl' for the 2 best 5-7 teams in the land. Two teams that have played a tough, close but no cigar schedule against the nations best teams. We could host in in Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium bringing much needed revenue into the capital city. It would draw tens of fans no doubt. **

 

[HotMop]

We lost to Houston in 2009. Why continue with this argument.

 

[patdog]

I can end this debate right now. Under your proposed rules, Rockey Felker would have gone to at least 3 and maybe 4 bowl games in his 5 years at MSU. Case closed.

 

[patdog]

Let's not forget that all those 5-7 teams you mentioned are really 4-7 teams against I-A competition. This guy is actually saying that a 4-7 team should have a chance to play in a bowl game.

 

[QuaoarsKing]

Did you read my post? I only said the top X teams should be allowed to play in a bowl (set X to whatever the market or the NCAA decides). A team that goes 4-7 against FBS competition is unlikely to be in the top X unless the bowls continue expanding so that X is huge, or it played a very tough schedule. Just beating Kentucky and 3 "average" CUSA teams isn't going to get you there.

But yes, theoretically, if your SOS is hard enough and you don't get blown out (because obviously score should be included in the computer formula) and you are clearly one of the top X teams in the country (I'd set X to be 50 or so, but it would probably be higher), then sure, play in a bowl if you're 5-7 with an FCS win. I don't see how that's any worse than letting a 6-6 team in with 1 FCS wins and 5 bad FBS wins. The top X teams should go, regardless of the record.

 

[QuaoarsKing]

You are bad with facts.

Actually, Felker would have gotten us to a bowl 3 times in the CURRENT system you love so much. We were 6-5 once and 5-6 twice in his five years. If rules allowed scheduling a 12 game back then, we could have added a nobody patsy and been 7-5 once and 6-6 twice. Under your beloved current system, any 6-6+ SEC is going to get a bowl, regardless of how good they are.

In summary:
Your beloved current system: Felker gets three bowls in 5 years, regardless of how good the team actually was, thanks to playing a ***** schedule and still not winning much
My more logical, fair system: Felker's team gets a bowl when objective statistics put them in the top X teams, probably just once (1986), unless X is very high. Possibly all 3 times, but no "worse" by your paradoxical standard.

 

[patdog]

You must have missed the part where I said they should change the CURRENT system to require 7 wins to qualify for a bowl. Felker would have had a chance to make 1 bowl if he'd won the 12th game his 1st season, and if he'd done that he would have deserved it. The simple fact is you're calling for 4-7 teams to be bowl eligible.

And speaking of bad with facts, under the current system Felker would have had 1 bowl season and a chance to get 2 others. He would have had to have won the 12th game in 1989 and 1990, and in 1989 he would have had to beat a I-A team.