I buy. You don't have to be particularly good, just schedule "correctly". You can be 6-6 with those wins being over completely craptastic teams and still get to a bowl nearly every year. Yet, "we" still hold going to bowl in very high esteem...
Buy/Sell: Going bowling is now almost equivalent to every kid getting a trophy?
- Thread starter horshack.sixpack
- Start date
Sell....
Certainly the plethora of lower tier bowls and the 12th reg season game dilutes the prestige of qualifying for one but no it is not equivalent of every kid getting a participation trophy. There are no qualifications for a participation trophy other than to participate. To go to a bowl game you must qualify by winning 6 games no matter how 'craptastic' the teams you still have to win the games. To be equivalent even the cupcakes you beat to qualify would go bowling too.
Certainly the plethora of lower tier bowls and the 12th reg season game dilutes the prestige of qualifying for one but no it is not equivalent of every kid getting a participation trophy. There are no qualifications for a participation trophy other than to participate. To go to a bowl game you must qualify by winning 6 games no matter how 'craptastic' the teams you still have to win the games. To be equivalent even the cupcakes you beat to qualify would go bowling too.
Buy in bulk. Going to a bowl game used to mean something and be a reward for a good season. Now, with so many bowl games, it means next to nothing. And two more bowl games are going to be added in 2015. That means that almost 80 of the 120 teams will be in bowl games. That's ridiculous. We can schedule the three worst FBS teams, a SWAC team and sneak out 2 conference wins and go bowling. There was no better indication of just how meaningless most bowl games are than a couple years ago when Illinois and UCLA played in the Kraft Foods Bowl or something like that in San Fran. with both teams having fired their head coaches. It was absurd. There's only about 10-15 bowl games that I would be proud going to, the rest are meaningless fluff.
It's going to get worse. The day is coming when there won't be enough eligible teams to fill all the bowl slots. The NCAA will then start letting 5-7 teams go to a bowl. I think they should raise the standard to 7 wins and tell the bowls that if there aren't enough eligible teams, they just won't get to play their game that year.
I'm fine with there being fewer bowl games -- but they've got to rethink how they do bowl eligibility altogether if they are going to do it. Going to "7 wins" is not the correct answer, and I've gone in depth on how that only hurts BCS teams before.
MSU fans clamoring for less under the justification that "we don't deserve it" are simply making it clear that they do not actually attend our bowl games though. As long as an SEC team is playing, there will always be justifiable interest to keep playing the game.
And BTW, I enjoyed the overall experience surrounding the 6-6 Music City Bowl more than I enjoyed either Gator Bowl. The actual game is a pretty small part of the bowl experience for me...
MSU fans clamoring for less under the justification that "we don't deserve it" are simply making it clear that they do not actually attend our bowl games though. As long as an SEC team is playing, there will always be justifiable interest to keep playing the game.
And BTW, I enjoyed the overall experience surrounding the 6-6 Music City Bowl more than I enjoyed either Gator Bowl. The actual game is a pretty small part of the bowl experience for me...
I don't understand why people complain...
1. More money for your team
2. More time to practice
3. Most important more football to watch.
I really like the bowl season. It's like a second season of college football or in more simple terms a extra month of football. I like!
1. More money for your team
2. More time to practice
3. Most important more football to watch.
I really like the bowl season. It's like a second season of college football or in more simple terms a extra month of football. I like!
I agree on going to the bowl, but I will say I hate the way bowl season is set up. I'd like to see all the bowl games on one Saturday or even one weekend, just like the season. The Fall Saturday is the biggest spectacle to me, the fact that numerous games are on and you can just soak it in. Many, many scores and highlights, similar to the NCAA basketball tournament. I'd have 90% of the bowls on that weekend, then have the BCS games and the National Championship game on January 1.
I propose an objective BCS-esque ranking that weighs heavily the SOS. It will always be somewhat subjective because of the human poll element, but still. Then go right down the list. Playoff committee chooses the first 4, then 5 plays 6, 7 and 8, etc. After the matchups are formulated, tweak it to ensure no same-conference games or rematches. Then attempt to adjust for location. Done.
Neither. If I got to run the world, you'd have to be >.500 to qualify and I'd weed out some crap bowls. Of course, I'm pretty old school and only believe you reward success. I also got dirty looks as a youth coach because I refused to give out participation trophies at the end of each season...
I'm firmly on the fence. I like to watch my team play one more game in seasons that feel successful. I could easily pass on it when the season didn't meet or exceed expectations. Depending on the level of bowl, I've read that it might actually cost the school money. I don't know that I'm sold on the practice benefits. I would give that more credence if our offense appeared to run like they had extra practices. I do like the bowls to be there for the prolonging of the football season. I always hate when it ends.
Regardless of all that, I do think it's silly to even get invited at 6-6.
Regardless of all that, I do think it's silly to even get invited at 6-6.
That's basically what I think as well...in letting the computers decide who "the best teams" actually are regardless of record.
A "7 win" floor mainly punishes SEC teams and other big conference teams that people are actually interested in seeing -- that would kick the dog **** out of the 7-8 win Sun Belt teams that are then bowling in their places. So, instead of removing dilution from bowl season -- you actually further dilute it with teams no one cares about...
I'd like to see 50 total bowl teams ranked 1-50 in some objective ranking. According to Sagarin, that would have put Missouri in at 5-7 and Ole Miss and Michigan St would have been the only 6 win teams included in bowl season... Non-BCS teams playing would have been still been in are Arky St, UCF, Tulsa, Boise, Northern Illinois, San Jose St, BYU, Utah St(Louisville, Syracuse, Cincinnati) which is about right in rewarding good seasons for the small guys. BCS teams left out(that were "bowl eligible") would have been Washington, Rutgers, Va Tech, Iowa St, Pitt, NC State, Minnesota, Purdue, and Duke...all very mediocre teams last year...
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A 7 win floor only punishes the teams that play in big boy conferences -- while rewarding crap teams in the Sun Belt, Cusa, Mountain West, MAC, and American...
There is a correct way to pull back on the number of bowl games. I'm pretty confident that 7-5 is not it...
Admittedly, I don't know the correct way. The genesis of my original post was seeing all of the things posted that we should and shouldn't do in scheduling just to make sure that we make a bowl game. I feel that bowl games are held in higher esteem than they warrant in this day and time.
I will say that if your assertion plays out, it would mean crap teams in crap bowls, good teams in good bowls, which may not be bad.
ETA: and if that happened, likely attendance would drop in crap bowls, fewer advertising dollars would come in and they might fold. Self-solving problem?
I will say that if your assertion plays out, it would mean crap teams in crap bowls, good teams in good bowls, which may not be bad.
ETA: and if that happened, likely attendance would drop in crap bowls, fewer advertising dollars would come in and they might fold. Self-solving problem?
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I understand that but that's not the reality. Reality is, 6-6 teams get bowls. So when you're faced with a decision to be 6-6 and considered a winner, or 5-7 and considered a loser, what idiot wouldn't pick 6-6? And not because it makes you feel better, deep down you know the truth no matter what. No, rather it's because it gets your team more practice, and helps with recruiting when your perception is a bowl team.
That's it, that's all the 'easy schedule' proponents' point is. It's really that simple. Nobody thinks we shouldn't have a better team.
That's it, that's all the 'easy schedule' proponents' point is. It's really that simple. Nobody thinks we shouldn't have a better team.
There are a lot of bowls... but it's much more than a t-ball trophy.
The benefits a bowl game has for the school (non-financially) are tremendous.
Those benefits do not appear to be manifest on the football field last season, nor this season. I do realize that it is an impossible argument to take the position that we couldn't have actually been worse than we have been the last two years, because I know that we could have. I'm just not sure that the bowl game is the reason that we weren't worse. At best, the correlation between going to a bowl game and performance on the field the next season is so loose that I'm not willing to promote or deride the perceived benefits...
There are 120 teams in the BCS......
70 teams earn the right to play in bowl games of varying significance via a performance based pecking order. 50 teams are left at home. That aint even close to 'almost'.
I will agree however that under the circumstances going to 3 consecutive bowl games is not nearly as significant an accomplishment as it was 20 years ago.
70 teams earn the right to play in bowl games of varying significance via a performance based pecking order. 50 teams are left at home. That aint even close to 'almost'.
I will agree however that under the circumstances going to 3 consecutive bowl games is not nearly as significant an accomplishment as it was 20 years ago.
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Regardless -- there is no possible way you can successfully argue to me that an extra 20 practices as a team doesn't help tremendously. Bowl practices provide a ton of time to get the young guys up to speed and ready to contribute in future years. You'd be hard pressed to convince me that this hasn't been happening -- given the success of some of our young guys the past couple of years...
If you are arguing that the overall results have been disappointing from all that extra practice, in that way I agree...
Why should a teacher give extra-credit to a C student? So the teacher can read more C(rap) work? A 6-6 team will not find quality football in 2 extra weeks of practice.
Maybe the "crap teams" will become the big boys if they are bowling perennially (insert perennial mid-major basketball tournament team here). But we wouldn't want to upset the balance of power.**
Buy. Roughly half the teams go to bowl games. Almost everyone loses money in the affair. Proof is in the money trail.
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We might lose money in the particular crappy bowl we go to, but overall we come out ahead because of the big boys in the SEC going to major bowls and doing the cost sharing thing.
Did an 8-4 season last year meet your expectations? I think we should have been in a lower bowl based on how we played down the stretch, but if my team goes 6-6 or better playing against 11-1 Alabama, 10-2 Texas A & M, 10-2 LSU, all from our side, and 9-3 South Carolina, 8-4 Vandy, 8-4 Florida and 10-2 Georgia all from the other side, I say hand me my participation trophy every 3 years for 6-6. I'll try to make it 7-5 or 8-4 the other 2 years.