If you love watching college football its pretty hard to complain about much come the end of December due to the perennial holiday that has became known as Bowl Season. From December 19th through January 11th fans get to enjoy a wide variety of different match-ups that feature a consistently wide variety of different teams. Fans get to enjoy the non-traditional contests between teams from all over thanks to the involvement of 78 teams throughout 41 bowls.
The amount of bowl games could leave any college football junkie satisfied in terms of quantity. Sadly, like with Chinese food, dollar general toys and NERDS candy pieces, sometimes a high amount of something causes the amount of satisfaction you get from it to suffer. In other words you get what you pay for.
So, where does the product of college football suffer in the quantity/quality debate? The games become nothing more than those last weeks of regular season conference schedule games played between two teams. Difference being that usually these teams have never/never would have seen each other under regular circumstances. The end result is overall still plausible. Seniors get to end their careers on a win. Young players receive a feeling of incentive to push harder the next season to play for another bowl appearance, being that the game is the same to them as a promotion is to you,=. A promotion that you are putting off so that you can sit on the couch and watch this 6-6 Big 10 team take on an 8-4 Mountain West school. And it’s all just fine and dandy as long as you can pretend the meaningless symbolism of the Tax Slayer Bowl trophy holds precedent to the players and fans.
The extensive number of bowls in 2015 has caused an expansion of what traditionally qualifies an FBS football program for the added “Bowl” game. Usually a .500 season (6 wins) is what is needed as a requirement to earn a bowl bid. However, the 41 bowls require more than that allows so three teams get grandfathered in with 5-7 records alongside the seemingly high number of teams that just squeaked in with 6-6 records. The three 5-7 teams are Nebraska, Minnesota and San Jose State, a Mountain West school and two Big Ten schools that have struggled with FCS programs in recent years. San José State earned their bowl bid without beating one of their other bowl eligible opponents, ands the Gophers and Cornhuskers went a cumulative 5-11 against their power 5 opponents in the Big Ten conference, hence the mediocrity of their involvement with bowl games. This is where the bowl selection committee comes in and saves the day by pairing these programs with similarly even programs that will produce a quality “Bowl”. Let’s just consider them the eHarmony.com of our football loving lives. Again, that’s all okay if you can neglect that you’re promoting just doing the bear-minimum in honor of a reward. However, I just can’t muster the power to do it anymore.
So, what’s a solution to this watered down product known as Bowl Mania?… CHANGE THE NARRATIVE!
With the addition of the college football playoff committee, the top FBS programs will cease to add-on so many Football Championship Subdivision (D-1 AA) early season “tune-up” games in the future. Between trying to impress the committee along with saving face from not losing to lesser tier teams you can’t necessarily blame the schools like Alabama and Oregon for forgoing these games that they seem to handle with ease. Meanwhile, schools like Nebraska and Minnesota have struggled with topping these teams in past seasons like Nebraska did with McNeese State in 2014 or even lost to FCS programs damning their reputations like Minnesota did against South Dakota State in 2010. With the tune-up games vanishing, goes with it is the money that those FCS programs treat like a kid does weekly allowance, all so the Conhurskers, Gophers and Spartans can pretend to celebrate their mediocrity of a possible six win season at year’s end.
Solution: don’t allow it!
Why not reward someone more deserving instead, someone who would have something to play for and would truly benefit from the bowl revenues along with incorporating more pride within the Bowl game? This enables the creation of the David vs. Goliath bowls: bowl games featuring the top ranked FCS programs at the year’s end against the just .500 FBS programs that have merely qualified for their bowl appearance.
The game would cause an incentive for both sides; the FCS schools would be playing for a chance to knock off their upper level opponents like they get to in those coveted tune-up games that will most likely be eliminated from them in the future, while the FBS schools play to prove they deserved to be there, that a 6-6 record isn’t good enough in their eyes and that pride is still a factor of a division one program.
Fans love an underdog spectrum that sports allows, it’s what we love about Wild Cards in the pros and it obviously fuels our joy of March Madness come college basketball season. Why not start spring a little early with some bowl game replicas via a few FCS vs. FBS match-ups.
There just isn’t much upside to trying to pump-up a post season game involving a team that couldn’t even win half of their regular season games, so why not try and solve it? Maybe this isn’t the proper solution, but it’s a possible solution! However, if you belong to the circle of people who enjoy watching these programs take advantage of their simple involvement by default I will leave you to it. While you’re there enjoy your extra large side of rice with your Sesame Chicken, your plethora of toys that will break in a week and your tons of empty boxes of NERDs candy pieces. Just as long as you can acknowledge that you’re swimming in a pool of your own quality/quantity mess that continues to be allowed by us fans.
LLOYD-RAGE! 