Gilbert Quinonez gquinonez@media.ucla.edu
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What will you be doing this Christmas? I’m guessing you
won’t be watching the Hawaii Bowl, featuring the Louisiana
Tech Bulldogs and the Alabama-Birmingham Blazers.
Yes, unfortunately, it’s that time of year again, when the
lords of college football decide to add even more meaningless games
to the schedule ““ bowl games. This year, the Hawaii Bowl, the
San Francisco Bowl and the Continental Tires Bowl have been added
to the schedule, bringing the bowl total to 28.
Fifty-six teams make a bowl game. 56. There are only 117 teams.
And 56 make it to a bowl game. They won’t always necessarily
be the best 56, either. Schools such as UCLA could pass on a bowl
appearance. The 6-5 teams from the Conference-USA and Mid-American
Conference could easily make a bowl game.
How bad will some of these bowl games be? The Hawaii Bowl
match-up mentioned above would feature those two unwatchable teams
if you were to factor in last year’s standings. The San
Francisco Bowl would match Pittsburgh (No. 5 in Big East) and New
Mexico (No. 4 Mountain West), and the Continental Tires Bowl would
have Boston College (No. 4 Big East) against Georgia Tech (No. 5
ACC). The Mainstay Independence Bowl would get Arkansas and your
choice of Rice, Miami (Ohio), Kent State, Northern Illinois and
Southern Mississippi (No. 6 Conference-USA ““ and they have a
chance to make it to a bowl?).
In fact, there are so many bowl games that some conferences
wouldn’t have enough teams with a winning record to send to
all of their guaranteed bowl games, such as the Big 10 and Big 12.
This would leave the bowl games with the vacated spots and three
bowl games that take at-large bids, Motor City Bowl, Crucial.com
Humanitarian Bowl and Silicon Valley Classic scrambling for the
remaining bowl-eligible teams. I can picture it now:
Humanitarian Bowl representative: “We want Bowling
Green!”
Motor City Bowl: “No, we want Bowling Green!”
Sixty-three teams were bowl eligible last year, and if 63 were
to be bowl-eligible this year, only seven wouldn’t make it to
a bowl. First of all, a few of those seven would have probably
turned down bowl invitations. Second of all, 63 bowl-eligible teams
seems pretty high for only 117 teams. Theoretically, only half of
the teams should have winning records, which would be 58. Only two
bowl-eligible teams would then miss a bowl game, and both of those
would probably have declined their invitations.
On the Statue of Liberty, it says “Give me your tired,
give me your poor, give me your huddled masses yearning to be
free.” The NCAA seems to be saying “Give me your weak,
give me your mediocre, give me your 6-5 teams that really earned a
bowl game.”
Where does this rapid expansion of bowl games end? When teams
with losing records make bowl games?
Hopefully, but probably not. Sadly, the bowls will continue to
grow and grow until they start losing money. All of the prize money
involved into going to a bowl game would make it hard for more
bowls to arise. Even the Continental Tires Bowl, one of the less
exciting bowl games will give each of its participants
$750,000.
Personally, I’d love it if Major League Baseball
Commissioner Bud “Contraction” Selig (or as Expos fans
call him, “Le Diable”), would be in charge of college
football. He’d quickly contract at least four bowl games and
incorporate a playoff system. You know a sport is in peril when a
fan wants the devil to run it.
Memo to NCAA: Please, enough is enough!