I'm fairly certain that I've read before that it actually costs more money to go to the bowl game than they get back.

 

Or else I fever dreamed it.

Schools aren't forced to go, they can turn down the bid. Most look at the expense as paying for exposure for their school.

College Football National Champions

 

Other than crowning a national champ before a bowl loss, looks like most of the time it did work out. To me, the trade off of protecting the traditional bowl set up is worth it.

Also, if these student-athletes are going to play more games and generate more big time revenue, they deserve a bigger piece of the pie than just their scholarship.

 

Traditional Bowl set up? More valuable than having the champion determined on the field?

 

Got to protect the Poulan Weedeater Bowl and the Mieneke Car Care Bowl I guess.

 

By Traditional Bowls I assume your talking about the current BCS bowls, Rose, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta...well they've been reduced in importance for the last 15 years

I feel that with the exception of the year that Nebraska went that the BCS pretty much got it right. As for the 4 team playoff it is yet to be seen how it will work out. I do agree the argument will now go to who is 4 and 5, there are going to be arguments no matter what system is used. I will say that I certainly hope that going to 8 teams or more in the future will not be the case. Simple reason is that football is not a large tournament friendly type game like NCAA basketball on the simple facts that a team could not play twice a week or more as in other sports. A large number tournament format would either shorten the regular season amount of games, cutting playing time for far more athletes than not PLUS would last forever, extending the season further and further. Football already goes into basketball season as it is. Finally, I am too much old school myself and don't want it going past a 4 team playoff and depending on how that affects the traditional Bowls, maybe not that. All my opinions of course.

Here's what I don't get about the bowls and how I heard that next year there would be a record number of something like 37 of them:

 

How do they make money? Viewership for lesser bowls can't possibly be good, and we know for a fact that attendance is usually quite poor for most. Who floats the boat on this? How much are corporate sponsors really putting up (especially in light of what seem like criminally-low amounts paid for things such as stadium naming rights)? I just don't see how the books balance to support that many snoozers.

 

When in doubt, the answer is almost always TV money these days...

 

When in doubt, the answer is almost always TV money these days...

 

Again, I ask, who's actually watching? I can't imagine some of these bowls are doing any more in ratings than any average regular-season game.

College Football National Champions

 

Other than crowning a national champ before a bowl loss, looks like most of the time it did work out. To me, the trade off of protecting the traditional bowl set up is worth it.

 

Also, if these student-athletes are going to play more games and generate more big time revenue, they deserve a bigger piece of the pie than just their scholarship.

 

It didn't work out in 1966. 9-0-1 ND beat out an Alabama team that went 11-0 (the only undefeated/untied team that year) and outscored their opponents 301-44 including 6 shutouts.

Loved the old days of watching all the bowl games on Jan first.

This is kind of one of the problems with it — too many teams that don't need to be in bowls make it. Some will view this as me being a Louisville fan taking a swipe at Kentucky, but I never got why Rich Brooks got all this praise for getting UK to ever how many bowls in a row it was. It wasn't that Brooks did anything spectacular; the bar was simply made much lower to make it easier for teams like Kentucky to get in.

 

Agreed, six wins to be in a bowl is crazy.

As much as everyone complains the BCS got it right most of if not every time.

 

Without a doubt. People begged for a matchup of the top two teams. That is what people got. You have a better shot of pairing the top two teams against one another in the BCS system as opposed to a playoff system. Easily.

College Football National Champions

 

Other than crowning a national champ before a bowl loss, looks like most of the time it did work out. To me, the trade off of protecting the traditional bowl set up is worth it.

 

Also, if these student-athletes are going to play more games and generate more big time revenue, they deserve a bigger piece of the pie than just their scholarship.

 

I don't remember it being that "cut and dry."

 

Examples:

 

1. Aforementioned 1966 season.

 

2. 1968 Ohio State was unbeaten but so was Penn State. Buckeyes are National Champs.

 

3. 1969 Texas is the unbeaten title holder and once more an undefeated Penn State is #2.

 

4. 1977 Notre Dame finishes 10-1 and wins the title, leap-frogging a higher ranked 10-1 Alabama who had steam rolled Ohio State. Arkansas was also 10-1 as was Texas (but they lost to Notre Dame big).

 

5. 1983 Unbeatens Texas and Nebraska fall in their bowl games and Miami is named champ as they stop a 2 pt conversion vs. Nebraska. 10-1 Auburn is left out of the picture.

 

6. Was it '92 when Florida State loses to ND but then the Irish drop one to Boston College the next week? Both finish 11-1 and yet the Seminoles are crowned champs. ?

 

 

There probably isn't a perfect system anywhere, but I disagree about the old way being better. Just my take.

It didn't work out in 1966. 9-0-1 ND beat out an Alabama team that went 11-0 (the only undefeated/untied team that year) and outscored their opponents 301-44 including 6 shutouts.

 

And you left out Michigan State who was 9-0-1 and physically abused the Irish in that classic tie.

I don't remember it being that "cut and dry."

 

Examples:

 

1. Aforementioned 1966 season.

 

2. 1968 Ohio State was unbeaten but so was Penn State. Buckeyes are National Champs.

 

3. 1969 Texas is the unbeaten title holder and once more an undefeated Penn State is #2.

 

4. 1977 Notre Dame finishes 10-1 and wins the title, leap-frogging a higher ranked 10-1 Alabama who had steam rolled Ohio State. Arkansas was also 10-1 as was Texas (but they lost to Notre Dame big).

 

5. 1983 Unbeatens Texas and Nebraska fall in their bowl games and Miami is named champ as they stop a 2 pt conversion vs. Nebraska. 10-1 Auburn is left out of the picture.

 

6. Was it '92 when Florida State loses to ND but then the Irish drop one to Boston College the next week? Both finish 11-1 and yet the Seminoles are crowned champs. ?

 

There probably isn't a perfect system anywhere, but I disagree about the old way being better. Just my take.

 

1993. It was expected that had Notre Dame not lost to Boston College (at home) that Florida State would get a crack at them in the Fiesta Bowl, a neutral field (the first game was at Notre Dame).

The +1 always made sense after they created the separate Championship Bowl. Though they do not call it the '+1' this seems to be that logical step. I guess they had to fix the 'semi' rotation to get the support of the Bowl committees. Though this will keep the old traditional matchups from happening in a lot of cases.

Now there's nothing to complain about all season..

I liked the Plus 1 idea, I really thought that is what would happen instead of a 4 team playoff.

 

Yeah I liked the plus one as well, seemed like it would solve any BCS issues or snubs. Auburn getting snubbed for Oklahoma during the Ronnie Brown Cadillac Williams days comes to mind. With a +1 Auburn would have got a shot against the winner of USC/Oklahoma and that would have settled it. As it sits, Auburn ran the table and USC had to vacate their title.

 

 

 

For the playoff setup I would like it to morph into an 8 team playoff eventually. You can still keep the main BCS bowls, and then have it set up to where four semifinalists make it to the National Semi's, then the two remaining play for the national championship. Seed and sort however you need to using the Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta bowls (although I would like to see traditional Big 10/Pac 12 in Rose Bowl, SEC in sugar, etc.) and then take the winners of each to complete the playoff. That way you still give those bowls importance, you still get the money from them, everything is all good. That is my vision for it......