OFFICIAL COLLEGE BOWL THREAD...Toby Keith is pissed.

No, the CUSA champ is scheduled to play in the Liberty Bowl.

 

You're right. Not sure what I was thinking there.

 

Holy shit, I agree with Mark.

To further that point, take your children's college fund and bet Ole Miss to cover. Pitt is bowling in Birmingham a THIRD consecutive season, and the Panthers already were in who-gives-a-fuck mode last year. They may have jumped to the ACC for the sole purpose of hoping to never see Legion Field again.

 

There was once upon a time some talk of a "Mini-BCS" that would select the top teams not picked for the BCS bowls. I think Gator, Peach (or whatever they call it now), Cotton and one of the other Florida bowls was rumored to be part of it. If they went ahead with it, that would go a long way to fixing that.
The Gator used to have a rotating conference tie-in (Big XII and Big East if memory serves) but they ditched that to take on a B1G team.

and in other news a Honda Civic is a nicer car than a Dodge Omni. Doesn't make it a luxury car.

 

Y'all do realize all this bitching and moaning is over glorified exhibition games aside from the big boy matchup Jan.7, right?

 

Hey, I'm the one who's supposed to use the silly car analogies.

 

Ding, ding, the newb gets the winner.

Shit, I remember back when making a bowl was actually a big deal. Now, more than half the teams make one.

 

I don't blame NIU. Hell, they're only a few spots below Florida State. You want to blame someone, blame Texas for losing last night, or the Big East and Big 10 for stinking up the joint this year. Blame Ohio State and Penn State. And blame a good season by Notre Dame.
College football officials have been pissing all over tradition for the last three years jumping time zones to jump conferences and THIS is the biggest outrage? It isn't like NIU is the lowest ranked team to ever make the BCS, but because some of the big boys got left out, it's a problem.
And part of the reason they want to spread out the BCS bids is that they don't want a bunch of regional matchups that won't play nationally.

 

Great post, Dan.

And the whining on ESPN tonight about NIU (I'll take everyone's word for it; didn't see it myself) reveals the "bowl system" for what it is: Holiday season programming to fill up The Worldwide Greeder's slate of networks.

Apparently ESPN believes it paid big money for the rights to bowl games (and makes even bigger money by broadcasting them), so it should have veto power over teams it doesn't like.

Just give it two more years. Those greedy bastards from Connecticut will have a seat at the playoff selection committee table. Count on it.

 

I think the bowl tie-ins work okay. You do see some turnover in tie-ins so conferences can go different places. The Pac-12 added the Alamo and lost the Insight/WildWings Bowl. And it seems like bowls are more eager to work with each other to trade teams in order to avoid having repeats.
Though I cannot fathom why the Big 10 and SEC feel the need to play three bowl games in Fla. on Jan. 1 within the same time slot.

 

I skipped to the end after reading the first page, so maybe it's been addressed, but NIU did not finish in front of Oklahoma. It finished four spots behind Oklahoma. But the rules give it the nod. So, don't say Oklahoma deserves it more than NIU, like that's meaningful because it isn't. Feel free to argue NIU doesn't deserve to be No. 15 or No. 16, but Oklahoma is meaningless in any discussion of NIU. Second, don't we all know that the power conferences would keep every NIU, Kent, Arkansas State, etc. out of it (or at least until they've been screwed over and over again like Boise had prior to its trip to the Fiesta) as long as they could. YES WE DO. And that's why it's a good rule. OU was simply unlucky. But NIU is not a reason for that rule to not exist, but the opposite. It is WHY THAT RULE EXISTS.