How many bowl games?

Roughly 25 percent of D-1 basketball teams make it to the NCAAs or post-season NITs.

Applying a similar ratio to football would bring us back down to about 15 to 18 bowl games, which would feel right. That would be selective enough to get rid of the 6-6 and 7-5 teams.

The compromise I would allow is to let non-bowl teams hold a few additional practices in December that wouldn't count against the 15-practice spring season. That would allow coaches to start slotting underclassmen into open spots in the two-deep and have a better idea what needs fixing before spring practice.

 

Plus, all of them should be played by Jan. 2 at the latest, unless Jan. 1-2 fall on a NFL Sunday. Jan. 5 was ridiculous. Jan. 8 this year was a joke.

 

Don't forget that one of those 6 wins can come from a FCS (I-AA) school, no?

 

No more than 10.

 

100 percent of them mean nothing.

 

22-25.

Gets rid of all the 6-6 and 7-5 teams while allowing your 10-1 Ball State, or Tulsa's of this world get a game against, Say Iowa or South Carolina.

 

19 bowls saw a decline in the attendance from 2007-08.

Of the 22 pre-Jan 1 bowls:

15 had attendance under 50,000
7 had attendance under 40,000
4 had attendance under 30,000

And the whole 'economic impact' argument gets way watered down with all these local teams essentially playing a glorified home game, where Joe fan simply drives an hour or two for the game, and then drives home afterwards. No hotel spend, no restaurant spend, no tourism spend.

I doubt there's enough economic justification for keeping all these 22 bowls going forward.

 

No it wouldn't. Didn't BYU beat a 6-5 Michigan team to "win" the national title in 1984?

Big-name schools would still get bids at 6-5 even with "only" 15-20 bowls.

 

HE'S A MAN! HE'S 340!

 

However many there are, I'll probably stil watch most of them. As I've said before, I'd much rather watch the New Orleans Bowl than a regular-season NBA or NHL game.

As far as there being "too many of them," the market will determine that.

Many here hammer on the NCAA for being such an anti-player organization (I'm guilty of this as well). So even though the NCAA has nothing whatsoever to do with the bowls, other than to ceretify them or de-certify them, even the less-important bowls are nice for the players, and it's good for them to receive some sort of reward.

And as far as players being "spoiled," perhaps at Michigan or Florida. Probably not so much at Troy, Northern Illinois or about 75 of the 119 D-I programs.

And the Chargers made the NFL playoffs at 8-8. So even the pros reward .500 teams.

 

i am guilty of watching either all of 'em or parts of them. lots of times, i will be fiddling with statistics or working on a story all the while a game is being televised. or turn the volume down to keep from fussing at some of the announcers.

 

Hell no it wouldn't. Money and the SEC, Big Ten and Big 12 talk. Some Pac-10 money whispers loud enough to be counted, especially if it has a 5-0 run like it did this year.