Have you checked out the bowl lineup? Sheesh, there are a record 40 bowl games, not counting the national championship.
Forty. That’s too many just about any way you look at it. There were 39 bowl games last year; 25 in 2000; 19 in 1990; 15 in 1980. Another half-dozen bowls have been proposed for next year.
It’s bowl game inflation and soon the entire system is going to collapse. Actually, it has already begun.
There are not even enough teams qualified to fill those 40 bowl games. For teams to be bowl eligible, they must win a minimum of six games and have at least a .500 record. Only 75 teams meet the criteria, and nine of them have bare minimum 6-6 records.
Three other teams — Georgia State, South Alabama and Kansas State — have 5-6 records with one game remaining. A dozen teams finished the season with 5-7 records. In other words, anywhere from two to five teams with losing records will be required to fill all the bowl games.
A few years ago a formula was devised to select teams with losing records to fill in when there is a dearth of eligible teams. It is based on Academic Progress Rates (APR). In past years North Texas, UCLA and Georgia Tech received waivers to play in bowl games with losing records. Last year 6-7 Fresno State played in a bowl game by virtue of winning a Mountain West division championship.
Lacking bowl-eligible teams, this year seven teams with 5-7 records will be considered for bowl games based on their APR — Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas State, Minnesota, San Jose State, Illinois and Rice (Missouri says it would decline an offer).
Bob Bowlsby, the appropriately named chairman of the Football Oversight Committee, told CBS Sports that college football officials have considered shutting down some bowls this year simply because there are not enough eligible teams. That sounds like a fine idea.
“If we add more bowls next year, where are we going to find 84, 86, 88 eligible teams?” Bowlsby told CBS’s Jon Solomon. “Having bowls go dark may be the way to slow the process down. There are a lot of people that don't even like 6-6, much less 5-7. There are people who absolutely want bowls to go dark.”
There are two simple solutions: Eliminate eligibility requirements completely or eliminate a half-dozen bowl games.
Teams and fans tend to measure the success of a season based on qualifying for a bowl game; this should stop immediately. A bowl berth is an overrated accomplishment. Do the math. There are 128 FBS schools; 80 teams (or 62.5 percent) will play in a bowl game, 48 will stay home. It has devalued bowl games. Most of them are the equivalent of a soccer friendly or the Pro Bowl. In the last two years 21 teams with just six wins managed to nab bowl berths.
There’s a bowl game for every business and chamber of commerce that wants a marketing tool where they can entertain clients in a sunny setting.
Hence, the AutoNation Cure Bowl, the Gildan New Mexico Bowl, the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, the GoDaddy Bowl, the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, the Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl, the New Era Pinstripe Bowl, the Foster Farms Bowl, the Quick Lane Bowl, the Advocare V100 Texas Bowl, the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl, the TaxSlayer Bowl.
In an interview with AP, Wright Waters, executive director of the Football Bowl Association, blamed the growing bowl lineup on conference commissioners who are pushing to have a bowl game for every eligible team in their conference. Since when were bowl bids handed out like participation trophies? Everyone’s a winner! Teams with 6-6 or 5-7 records should not be in bowl games.
"The pressure on commissioners to get as close as they can to have all their teams taken care of brings us to the brink of Armageddon," Waters told AP.
Maybe Armageddon is what the system needs so it can start over.
Doug Robinson's columns run on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Email: drob@deseretnews.com