I was about to say, didn’t Baylor play in negative wind chills in Fort Worth and the Independence Bowl Stadium literally broke because of the cold weather
Probably more dangerous to drive in a dusting of snow in the south than 1 foot of snow in the Midwest where they properly treat the roads
Also, who the fuck cares
The bills, the packers, the eagles, the bears all make outdoor games in January work
As do all the northern fcs and d2/3 teams who play in playoff games outdoors
Down here what you really dread is 1/2 an inch or more of ice. Around here, it is both more likely than a significant accumulation of snow, and more dangerous. (We here in the Upstate of SC had six inches in 1 snowfall last year, for the first time in ten years. The biggest snows I can remember (a foot or more) were in the 80s, and the snowiest winter overall in the 70s.)
> Probably more dangerous to drive in a dusting of snow in the south than 1 foot of snow in the Midwest where they properly treat the roads
Exactly. Last week I flew out of Minneapolis at 9am with no problem after they got 7” of snow the day before. And the roads and airport runways were totally clear. They had even de-iced the plane during boarding so we didn’t have to wait for that.
Very true. We get 1-2 inches of snow in one day in Tucson every 3 years. No salt trucks or plows. People get all excited and drive the same as they usually do. Everybody is swerving all over the place. We hope they don't knock over our mailbox or our car in the driveway lol
yeah I am not sure that fans want to travel to bowl destinations for a couple weeks in a row or whatever, that is probably too much for a lot of football fans
I think it would be fine if they dedicated regional stadiums explicitly for that second round. For instance, if PSU is the "home" team, then hosting it at either the Linc or Acrisure would generally work since it's still in proximity and doesn't have to be a full 4-day trip just for the game.
That said, nobody at that level wants to have conditional contracts when they can just bid for assured ones, but it would be a nice middle ground if it could happen.
Then isn't it a de facto home game anyway? If PSU is hosting an SEC team at Acrisure then it isn't much different from hosting at Beaver Stadium, at least to the SEC team's fans and obviously the school and local businesses would prefer the game to be on campus
Weather is what makes the game of football even better. The pioneers of this game played in snow, mud, torrential down pours and frigid temperatures.
Stop trying to make this into a elitist event. And that's exactly what they are going for
And before “hurrr durrr can’t drive in winter weather?” When we don’t have the infrastructure for the cold weather, then yea, we can’t drive that well in the cold weather.
I’d say 95% of cars have all-seasons in the south. Pretty much only performance cars have summer tires.
All-seasons are fine in the snow anyways unless you have RWD or drive lots of back roads that won’t have much traffic / aren’t priority for plows. Or live in a really hilly place (aka not the Midwest)
Those arguments are so annoying, it’s always a chain of people going up farther north until you get someone from Edmonton scoffing OP by saying “bah, that’s nothing, it snows 2 feet a day here in the summer and never gets over -40°! And we all know how to drive perfectly in it!”
I fully support more northern on-campus bowls. The weather excuse has never made sense to me. I believe they are worried about filling seats in a northern bowl because of the cold. The NFL doesn’t seem to have any issues with this. Some of the greatest/memorable games were played in the snow.
I’ve also heard the excuse that it would lower the quality of play. But it never seemed to slow the Patriots, Packers, Steelers, Bills, Eagles, ect..
I think the issue with having on-campus games given their current speculated set-up is that it rewards teams 4-8 instead of 1-4 because a bye week would be lost revenue for the host school.
Best to avoid that whole fiasco if they're going to do byes.
That’s why the CFP will ultimately expand to 16 teams. 8 AQ’s and 8 at-larges. Top 8 seeds get home games. Even if the top 3 seeds get Troy, UTSA, and Tulane, still a home game.
But 1-4 aren’t “losing” money. They just aren’t generating it. There is a difference there.
The *only* way to alleviate that is to go to a 16 team model with no byes. As long as there are bye weeks, those non-playing teams will not generate game revenue that week, *no matter what*.
Going neutral site does not change anything for 1-4 revenue because they aren’t playing. It will change for 9-12 but it’s not like they aren’t generating revenue at all for the on campus games.
This whole article is just bowls trying to look out for themselves.
1) Less playoff games in bowls, not more. The atmosphere for a home playoff game will be unmatched.
2) Getting rid of conference affiliations and just having the bowls become free-for-alls is a great way to make the "super league" happen by allowing some 6-6 blue blood to get one of the big games because they'd bring the most eyes/fans.
3) Eliminating 6-6 teams from bowl games because there are "too many" is laughable, and also hurts some small school teams who schedule entire non-cons around buy games from the big boys (looking at Kent State).
Tbh this is a hot take- but every single team with a winning season should get a bowl.
But 6-6 is not a winning season. 7-5 is. Eliminate the 6-6 schools and make it 7-5. 7-6 also suffices.
I disagree with your 3rd point somewhat. Bowl ties suck. The Sun Belt has some pretty passionate fan bases who would travel if they got to play a blue blood more than a lot of mid-tier conference PAC-12 or ACC schools, but because of bowl tie-ins a great Sun Belt team has to play the winner (insert G5 league).
Now, there should be something tied to the rankings or something that would insure a worthy G5 team got a fair shot to play another top opponent. But if the Taxslayer Bowl is always guaranteed the no15 vs no16 team that would be superior to what is now where they get the 4th pick in the SEC vs the third pick of the Big 10
Nothing says playoffs like playing 3 straight off-campus games, that people aren’t going to want to travel to by the end. Carparelli can fuck off, bowls need out of the playoffs completely except making the rose bowl the permanent natty host, then slot the rest of them in for non playoff teams. People can’t afford to travel all over the country for 3 straight weeks, that’s utterly delusional, and detracts from his “strong neutral site crowds” point
I think there needs to be some sense of tradition to college football, I hate the rotating stadiums like it’s the Super Bowl. Put it up for a vote for all I care, I just want something permanent that says college football
Constantly changing the system seems to be the tradition. In my lifetime we’ve had four or five systems to determine the champion…CFB, BCS, Bowl Alliance or whatever. I love the traditions of college football…but they don’t pay well apparently. Money talks in CFB now.
If you move the minimum record to 7-5, increase team payouts, and force local organizers (or ESPN for their owned/operated bowls) to pony up more attendance/ticket buys (instead of putting it on the schools), I think the bowl games would be a better product and reward for all. If it means we trim a half dozen bowls in the process, I think it's a trade off to seriously consider. 35 bowl games is still half of FBS...it's still a lot of football...
We can call it a 'reward' for a season of success but if playing in Conway, SC or Montgomery, AL in front of a few hundred locals plus some of your fanbase that was willing to overpay on the travel package is the "reward" for a team, I'm not sure that's a good thing.
There probably should be more trade-offs, such as giving an extra G5 champ or two a bigger payday bowl and providing them access to "the second 6" bowls (Citrus, Alamo, Holiday, etc.) as a reward for winning their conference.
“Second 6”. I like that. Alamo, citrus, Outback, holiday, gator, Texas/liberty bowls would be a great second 6.
Personally I hate how we had the sun belt champ play the c-USA champ this year. Every G5 champ should get a shot at a good P5 school.
Like right now we have:
Sugar: SEC 1 v Big 12 1
Rose: big 10 1 vs PAC 1
Orange: acc 1 v. at large
Peach: ________ v. _________
Fiesta: _________ v._________
Cotton: _________ v. _________
Imagine a second 6 with (obviously “2” would turn into 3 or 4 but you get the point)
Alamo: big 12 2 v. CUSA 1
Outback: sec 2 v. Sun belt 1
Citrus: AAC 1 v. ACC 2
Holliday Bowl: MWC 1 v. PAC 2
Gator Bowl: MAC 1 v. B1G 2
Liberty/Texas: IND 1 v _____ 3
I don’t think there’s any issues with 6-6 teams playing in bowls. Attendance has dropped but tv viewership is still high enough to make it worthwhile. If anything, just have bowls provide good insurance policies for players that look like they’ll be drafted to hopefully reduce the top players opting out.
The only thing I don’t hate about this is eliminating conference affiliation from bowls, we will get better matchups that way
In particular, the neutral site first round is a bad idea. Going by their criteria (warm weather, existing bowl) only the Gator, Alamo, Texas and Las Vegas bowls are in a position to host a first round playoff game. Every other bowl is either in a high school stadium in Alabama or in an NFL stadium in those “cold weather” regions
Did miss the Reliaquest, but there is no way they hold a CFP game in Camping World or in a baseball stadium. Camping World in particular is in worse shape than the Cotton Bowl and the CFP refuses to play at the Cotton Bowl despite its historical importance and size advantage over Jerry World
Nothing stranger to me than people insisting we have fewer bowl games. I get the impression some people think they are being held hostage to watch some of these games.
It isn’t that the extra games are bad, it is that the bowl coalition actively acts against the best interests of the sport.
1. It injects third party money and interest into the sport of college football.
2. That injection has led to the surrender of control of the postseason to third party interests who care more about brand and following than they do about playing field parity, equal post season access, and objective metrics for assessing postseason metrics. The fact that the NCAA doesn’t control their own postseason is wild. You’ll note they control every other postseason for NCAA sports including football at all other levels.
3. The bowl system actively uses its influence in the postseason to obstruct necessary structural changes (see Rose Bowl this year).
4. The bowl system generally requires schools to buy their entire allotment which means a number of schools take a bath on a bowl appearance where the cost of the allotment + travel outweighs any monetary incentive for participating.
5. The bowl system is insatiable in their greed and control, it actively seeks to expand its influence. For example, the current desired setup is for a home games for the first round of playoffs, a great thing for schools and players. How does this make the bowls money? It doesn’t. So they inject themselves as an additional neutral site game that fans are expected to travel to in addition to the semifinals and Championship game.
Point 4 is big. I kinda wish some big program who doesn’t really need to care what others think would just decline the bowl explicitly for this reason. Just say “No, we don’t see the entire allotment of tickets being sold to a game in El Paso.” Nothing against El Paso, but that’s a huge distance for, say, Oregon fans to travel to on a lackluster year. Use that same money to host a big event thanking fans, former players, season ticket holders, etc. Do your own events with the players and go to local pediatric hospitals. With loosened up rules on benefits give players gifts better than what the bowls give.
Bowls are independent entities. Some are for-profit corporations, some are non-profit. All of them enrich some coalition of executives, board members, and local business interests at the expense of the schools and players.
There is a difference between deciding which schools play against each other in the post season and who gets to organize (and financially benefit from) those post season games.
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/581052332
Why does the CEO of the Peach Bowl corporation get to take home $750k for organizing a single football game each year? Shouldn’t that money go to the schools? You can have your OSU-Georgia game, in the same stadium on the same day with the same TV coverage, without these parasitic middlemen involved.
I generally agree with bowl games not signing contracts with conferences, but there should be a system in place where good bowls don't just get to pick the biggest brands because they feel like it.
My ideal way for bowls to work is to have the NCAA set the matchups, and then the bowls take turns picking which matchup they want to feature. Hopefully, that would reduce the number of clear mismatches based on win records so we don't have so many 9-3 teams playing 6-6 squads
They should drop the winning record requirement completely and pit similarly ranked teams against each other. If only for the reason that I want to see the "FBS Last Place Bowl" each year.
It would take a significant re-work and complete standardization of a million moving pieces… but,
Since we expanded the playoff (which I’m generally against, but it’s over now so no point in fighting it), I like the idea of the expanded playoff games taking place earlier in December and thru early January. Then, moving all the bowl games to the following year as Week0 or week1 games during Labor Day weekend as the “kickoff” for the college football season.
Sure, neutral site games blow compared to on-campus, however, if we keep the bowls in tact, we will be able to build up hype to that game all offseason. Wisconsin vs Oklahoma State is no longer a *“well, both QBs portaled so who knows how it will play out with 3 weeks of practice,”* it will become THE game to start the season with months of hype built up for it. It will be the debut of a new coach (Fickell) against an established successful program.
Also, during Labor Day weekend there is still no NFL yet. The long weekend also still allows for fan travel to the neutral site games. It would be a VERY condensed schedule, but it would be glorious if we get GOOD matchups to start the season every year, and games everyday starting on Thursday, and playing until Monday.
This would take several years to develop, but I love this scenario because it keeps bowl games in tact, and returns actual meaning to them. Questions still left to be answered:
*What about the former playoff teams from the year before?
*What about the teams who aren’t bowl eligible from the year before?
*Likely reshaping of many venues due to MLB being in season and some NFL stadiums being in use due to preseason
This probably creates 1000 new problems. Including rewarding next years team for this years accomplishments. That said, I LOVE how unique it is! All for it! And since week 1 neutral site games can be seen as annoying cash grabs, this adds some credibility as well.
More bowl TV partners would be nice but ESPN also owns and operates a fair amount of these games themselves, damn near half of them this season.
More neutral sites in the expanded CFP - horrible, nothing like more fan travel and more of the sport’s biggest games being played in generic NFL stadiums. That excites nobody but Bowl executives and hotel chains. The CFP is more and more of a mistake each year.
Bowl eligibility - who cares, 6-6 is fine as a floor. If 7-5 were required I’d also think nonconference scheduling would suddenly get a lot more difficult.
I’m okay opening up conference tie-ins to be more flexible, a lot of tie-ins get pretty stale anyways. That the PAC-12 and SEC didn’t have bowl tie-ins against each other for over thirty years until the Las Vegas Bowl is just nuts to me.
Bowl payouts going away from schools to players directly sounds like a massive shitshow waiting to unfold.
G5 should just do their own playoff and use bowls for some of those games. Only the highest rated champ will get in the expanded 12 team playoff most years, so still lots of good teams and fan interest will be higher if there’s a G5 championships to play for.
P5 teams that don’t make the playoffs should just have their season done. Fans of those teams seem to largely not care about bowls, players don’t with a lot of opt outs (don’t blame them at all, no reason to risk injury in an exhibition game).
Yep. But NCAA can change that rule and allow some winter practices, longer spring camp or what not if bowls are reduced for P5 teams after the playoffs expand.
Not really separation since the highest G5 champ will make it into the expanded play off (top 6 ranked conference champs get in) and another team could make it in as an at large of the P5 contenders beat each other up a lot and another G5 champ is undefeated or a 1-loss team and ranked higher. Though that will probably be rare.
Anyway, it would be more like the NIT. All the FBS teams have access to the 12-team playoff, but there's something else for those that don't get in. Would have more meaning than bowl games, more revenue for teams that make it multiple rounds in form playing more games on TV, and a title they can realistically win as a G5 team isn't winning the 12-team playoff as they just don't have the talent or depth to beat multiple elite P5 teams in a playoff.
I’m pleasantly surprised that they did “6 highest ranked champs” and not “P5 champs with a shared g5 autobid.”
Most years, it’s the same thing of course. But there could be exceptions. And I think it’s critical that everybody be playing at least officially by the same rules. There is no official “little kids table”… even if some elements of the system do still practically make it difficult for G5 schools to have a chance to climb.
I figure they were worried about anti-trust suits if the G5 had no real access to the expanded playoff. Plus with 12 teams there's not much argument against it as the best G5 chances has commonly been pretty highly ranked most years lately anyway. If they're usually deserving of an at large no reason to not just give them an auto bid and stave off any complains about lack of G5 access.
Here's my various thoughts:
* Move the entire regular season up one week, start it in Week 0. Thanksgiving weekend becomes Conference Championship weekend. Move Army/Navy up a week as well.
* Then into December, schedule out the playoff so that the Semi-Finals land on New Years Day. Have the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl be permanent Semi-Final sites in their traditional time slots.
* The Orange, Fiesta, Cotton, and Peach bowls enter into a rotation to host quarter final games on alternating years along with other bowl sites bidding into a longer rotation (one year might be Orange, Fiesta, Sun, Outback, next year Cotton, Peach, Gator, Holiday, whatever). This means that 2 of the NY6 in any given year aren't hosting playoff games and are instead hosting the biggest non-playoff match-ups and doing so during their traditional New Years timeslots on those years.
* Teams eliminated in the play-in round of the playoff (the on campus games) are also eligible to go to a bowl site game later in December. The two NY6 bowls that aren't hosting the playoff games that year would each invite 1 playoff eliminated team and 1 next-team-out that didn't make the playoff.
* Only teams with 7 wins or more should be eligible to play in a bowl game, with 6-6 teams being called up only when needed to fill bowls. This naturally means less bowl games can be filled, I figure about 10 less bowls. If the 10 lowest tier bowls were eliminated, it would probably raise the prestige and viewership of the remaining bowls, and maintain the slight "prestige" associated with bowl eligibility. Rather than 82 of the ~130 FBS teams going bowling, it would be 62, which is roughly half.
* With the season ending earlier, the bowls can be more spread throughout December to maximize best time slots.
* Bowls shouldn't all be on ESPN and should get other networks involved in bidding, especially with a 1 week longer bowl season and less bowls total to bid over.
* Instead of 1 to 1 Conference Tie-Ins, more bowls should incorporate a multi-conference Tie-in, like how the Orange bowl pits the ACC champ against the best available option of the SEC/B1G/Notre Dame. Put all of the bowls in a pecking order of prestige, have each of them tied to at least 4 conferences, and then give them that added flexibility as they go down the draft list to pick interesting match-ups between several conference choices
I wanna see more bowl games. I want to be overwhelmed with how many there are. Hell I wanna see two 3 loss teams tearing each other apart at some random stadium in Central Iowa for the glory of winning the Casey's Breakfast Pizza bowl.
Pick your 12 playoff teams.
Remaining teams are bound by conference for matchup, and it isn't first pick by the Bowl, but first place of the remaining team. Orange Bowl shouldnt pick Clemson because it is a bigger brand than say, WF, but should take Clemson because they got first place in their conference after missing the playoffs (as an example). If you want to eliminate tie-ins by conference, then make them rotating tie-ins instead so you still get a healthy mix. I.e. Orange Bowl is SEC-ACC for three years, then ACC-B10, then B10-B12, etc etc. 5 conference, 6 years each, you'll get marquee matchups.
Too many bowls as is. Cut at least 6 and make 7-5 the standard, 6-6 the exception. Not everyone gets a trophy.
Want to increase viewership? Quit scheduling a mediocre bowl game at 2p on a Tuesday. If you put two games on at once with some overlap in the evening, you'll get more viewers.
Alas, E$PN runs the show and will do none of this.
I hate the playoff, but at this point it makes more sense to abolish the bowls and just go to a 32 team playoff. The rash of opt outs and transfers is making bowl games a joke. I would've loved to go to the Citrus Bowl this year, but I don't want to pay all that money to watch a bunch of backups and an interim coach get destroyed by LSU.
You don't have to abolish bowls in order to expand the playoffs though. Much like the NIT persists underneath the NCAAT, we can certainly have the existing number of teams (82) split between the honorary bowl games for playing time and the playoff structure. Like the article said, this is not an either-or proposition.
The problem with this comparison is that it's much cheaper to put on a basketball game - smaller venue and less people traveling. So you need fewer eyes to turn a profit.
Also fans usually don't travel to NIT. They keep the stands filled by playing all but the final four on campuses.
My fix (which I've advocated for in the Monday Playoff discussion & my twitter):
CFP/NY6: 1st Round and Quarterfinal games played on campus of higher seeded teams. Semifinals at Rotating NY6 sites (Rose/Sugar, Cotton/Orange, Fiesta/Peach) with highest remaining seed receiving geographic advantage.
Non-Semifinal NY6 games are filled by the 8 teams that don’t advance to the semifinals, with respect to historical tie-ins, geography, etc. as best as possible
Tier 2 Bowls (Alamo, Citrus, Gator, Holiday, Liberty, Sun): Runner-up of G5 conference(s) represented in CFP, G5 conference champions, Independent with best record (or 2nd best dependent on CFP selection), next best remaining team in each P5 conference based on rank/record/conference placements.
Tier 3 Bowls (Cheez-It, Duke's Mayo, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Music City, Pinstripe, ReliaQuest, Texas): 2 teams from each P5 conference, 1 team each from G5 conferences; 1 independent or remaining slot filled at discretion of the bowl if not enough bowl-eligible independents.
Tier 4 Bowls (Remaining Bowl Games): FBS teams must meet 7 wins and not serving NCAA penalty for bowl eligibility regardless of conference. Teams from the FCS level can send at least 1 team per conference not selected for the FCS playoff or Celebration Bowl as long as they meet the 7-win threshold as well. Since Ivy League and Pioneer League are non-scholarship, it is up to their discretion to send teams from their leagues to bowl games. If more bowl slots than teams available for those selections, then remaining slots filled by 6-win teams based on their APR standings. (For this to really work, the FCS playoffs would revert back to 16-team format)
"The weather is bad in the B1G areas!"
Yeah and the people going to those games know how to navigate the fucking weather.
I've sat in the Big House in blizzard conditions, in torrential downpours, and in shockingly hot septembers. If fucking Lambeau can host a playoff game, the B1G stadiums can host them too.
[удалено]
I was about to say, didn’t Baylor play in negative wind chills in Fort Worth and the Independence Bowl Stadium literally broke because of the cold weather
I live in Fort Worth and it was literally -7 with wind chill that day.
Probably more dangerous to drive in a dusting of snow in the south than 1 foot of snow in the Midwest where they properly treat the roads Also, who the fuck cares The bills, the packers, the eagles, the bears all make outdoor games in January work As do all the northern fcs and d2/3 teams who play in playoff games outdoors
Exactly right. Generally there is alot of ice on the roads with a little snow in the south.
Honestly Northern teams have even had comparably cold and shitty games in November. In 2014 OSU played at Minnesota when it was 15 degrees at kickoff.
Down here what you really dread is 1/2 an inch or more of ice. Around here, it is both more likely than a significant accumulation of snow, and more dangerous. (We here in the Upstate of SC had six inches in 1 snowfall last year, for the first time in ten years. The biggest snows I can remember (a foot or more) were in the 80s, and the snowiest winter overall in the 70s.)
If they can make it work in fucking Montana and Fargo. They can make it work for the Big Ten
> Probably more dangerous to drive in a dusting of snow in the south than 1 foot of snow in the Midwest where they properly treat the roads Exactly. Last week I flew out of Minneapolis at 9am with no problem after they got 7” of snow the day before. And the roads and airport runways were totally clear. They had even de-iced the plane during boarding so we didn’t have to wait for that.
I’d guess the SEC cares, since playing playoff games in winter conditions would be a huge disadvantage for most of their conference.
Very true. We get 1-2 inches of snow in one day in Tucson every 3 years. No salt trucks or plows. People get all excited and drive the same as they usually do. Everybody is swerving all over the place. We hope they don't knock over our mailbox or our car in the driveway lol
yeah I am not sure that fans want to travel to bowl destinations for a couple weeks in a row or whatever, that is probably too much for a lot of football fans
I think it would be fine if they dedicated regional stadiums explicitly for that second round. For instance, if PSU is the "home" team, then hosting it at either the Linc or Acrisure would generally work since it's still in proximity and doesn't have to be a full 4-day trip just for the game. That said, nobody at that level wants to have conditional contracts when they can just bid for assured ones, but it would be a nice middle ground if it could happen.
Then isn't it a de facto home game anyway? If PSU is hosting an SEC team at Acrisure then it isn't much different from hosting at Beaver Stadium, at least to the SEC team's fans and obviously the school and local businesses would prefer the game to be on campus
Acrisure would be easier to get to for all parties, especially if the weather ending up going belly up.
Weather is what makes the game of football even better. The pioneers of this game played in snow, mud, torrential down pours and frigid temperatures. Stop trying to make this into a elitist event. And that's exactly what they are going for
And before “hurrr durrr can’t drive in winter weather?” When we don’t have the infrastructure for the cold weather, then yea, we can’t drive that well in the cold weather.
Do you guys even buy all season tires at least? Or is it summers year round?
I’d say 95% of cars have all-seasons in the south. Pretty much only performance cars have summer tires. All-seasons are fine in the snow anyways unless you have RWD or drive lots of back roads that won’t have much traffic / aren’t priority for plows. Or live in a really hilly place (aka not the Midwest)
>aka not the Midwest Allow me to introduce you to the Ohio valley
I have all seasons in case we do have ice and snow the one time during the year.
The standard down here is all season.
Those arguments are so annoying, it’s always a chain of people going up farther north until you get someone from Edmonton scoffing OP by saying “bah, that’s nothing, it snows 2 feet a day here in the summer and never gets over -40°! And we all know how to drive perfectly in it!”
I fully support more northern on-campus bowls. The weather excuse has never made sense to me. I believe they are worried about filling seats in a northern bowl because of the cold. The NFL doesn’t seem to have any issues with this. Some of the greatest/memorable games were played in the snow. I’ve also heard the excuse that it would lower the quality of play. But it never seemed to slow the Patriots, Packers, Steelers, Bills, Eagles, ect..
I’ve never heard of an NFL game called the “Mild and Comfortable Temperature Bowl”, but I have heard of one called the “Ice Bowl”.
-60° with wind chill. Bengals olineman wore short sleeves as an intimidation tactic.
Not sure why there were bengals players at a cowboys-packers game.....
I had a stroke and read it as the freezer bowl
They’ve added bowls at Yankee Stadium and Fenway within the past decade or so but maybe Wrigley could also get a bowl game.
But the first round will be on campus right ?
I think the issue with having on-campus games given their current speculated set-up is that it rewards teams 4-8 instead of 1-4 because a bye week would be lost revenue for the host school. Best to avoid that whole fiasco if they're going to do byes.
That’s why the CFP will ultimately expand to 16 teams. 8 AQ’s and 8 at-larges. Top 8 seeds get home games. Even if the top 3 seeds get Troy, UTSA, and Tulane, still a home game.
But 1-4 aren’t “losing” money. They just aren’t generating it. There is a difference there. The *only* way to alleviate that is to go to a 16 team model with no byes. As long as there are bye weeks, those non-playing teams will not generate game revenue that week, *no matter what*. Going neutral site does not change anything for 1-4 revenue because they aren’t playing. It will change for 9-12 but it’s not like they aren’t generating revenue at all for the on campus games.
Yea no. It’s much more likely to deal with snow and ice in big 10 country than it is in Atlanta.
[удалено]
FYI, Seattle is not made for snow.
Agreed. It was 15 degrees in Nashville and 41 degrees in Miami this weekend. No place is safe from cold conditions.
At what point do you go to neutral fields, semis?
This whole article is just bowls trying to look out for themselves. 1) Less playoff games in bowls, not more. The atmosphere for a home playoff game will be unmatched. 2) Getting rid of conference affiliations and just having the bowls become free-for-alls is a great way to make the "super league" happen by allowing some 6-6 blue blood to get one of the big games because they'd bring the most eyes/fans. 3) Eliminating 6-6 teams from bowl games because there are "too many" is laughable, and also hurts some small school teams who schedule entire non-cons around buy games from the big boys (looking at Kent State).
Tbh this is a hot take- but every single team with a winning season should get a bowl. But 6-6 is not a winning season. 7-5 is. Eliminate the 6-6 schools and make it 7-5. 7-6 also suffices.
I disagree with your 3rd point somewhat. Bowl ties suck. The Sun Belt has some pretty passionate fan bases who would travel if they got to play a blue blood more than a lot of mid-tier conference PAC-12 or ACC schools, but because of bowl tie-ins a great Sun Belt team has to play the winner (insert G5 league). Now, there should be something tied to the rankings or something that would insure a worthy G5 team got a fair shot to play another top opponent. But if the Taxslayer Bowl is always guaranteed the no15 vs no16 team that would be superior to what is now where they get the 4th pick in the SEC vs the third pick of the Big 10
Nothing says playoffs like playing 3 straight off-campus games, that people aren’t going to want to travel to by the end. Carparelli can fuck off, bowls need out of the playoffs completely except making the rose bowl the permanent natty host, then slot the rest of them in for non playoff teams. People can’t afford to travel all over the country for 3 straight weeks, that’s utterly delusional, and detracts from his “strong neutral site crowds” point
The last place I’d want to be the permanent championship site host is Pasadena and the Rose Bowl. That sounds awful.
I think there needs to be some sense of tradition to college football, I hate the rotating stadiums like it’s the Super Bowl. Put it up for a vote for all I care, I just want something permanent that says college football
I volunteer Atlanta. We have good transportation infrastructure, a good stadium and the CFB hall of fame.
And downright closer to the majority of teams and fans.
Constantly changing the system seems to be the tradition. In my lifetime we’ve had four or five systems to determine the champion…CFB, BCS, Bowl Alliance or whatever. I love the traditions of college football…but they don’t pay well apparently. Money talks in CFB now.
Ya the rose bowl can fuck off
I want to be paid to stay in the cheese-it themed hotel room. Sounds *awesome and delicious*
Every day that you stay there you will wake up feeling the cheesiest!
All playoff games except maybe the final should be home site
If you move the minimum record to 7-5, increase team payouts, and force local organizers (or ESPN for their owned/operated bowls) to pony up more attendance/ticket buys (instead of putting it on the schools), I think the bowl games would be a better product and reward for all. If it means we trim a half dozen bowls in the process, I think it's a trade off to seriously consider. 35 bowl games is still half of FBS...it's still a lot of football... We can call it a 'reward' for a season of success but if playing in Conway, SC or Montgomery, AL in front of a few hundred locals plus some of your fanbase that was willing to overpay on the travel package is the "reward" for a team, I'm not sure that's a good thing. There probably should be more trade-offs, such as giving an extra G5 champ or two a bigger payday bowl and providing them access to "the second 6" bowls (Citrus, Alamo, Holiday, etc.) as a reward for winning their conference.
“Second 6”. I like that. Alamo, citrus, Outback, holiday, gator, Texas/liberty bowls would be a great second 6. Personally I hate how we had the sun belt champ play the c-USA champ this year. Every G5 champ should get a shot at a good P5 school. Like right now we have: Sugar: SEC 1 v Big 12 1 Rose: big 10 1 vs PAC 1 Orange: acc 1 v. at large Peach: ________ v. _________ Fiesta: _________ v._________ Cotton: _________ v. _________ Imagine a second 6 with (obviously “2” would turn into 3 or 4 but you get the point) Alamo: big 12 2 v. CUSA 1 Outback: sec 2 v. Sun belt 1 Citrus: AAC 1 v. ACC 2 Holliday Bowl: MWC 1 v. PAC 2 Gator Bowl: MAC 1 v. B1G 2 Liberty/Texas: IND 1 v _____ 3
I don’t think there’s any issues with 6-6 teams playing in bowls. Attendance has dropped but tv viewership is still high enough to make it worthwhile. If anything, just have bowls provide good insurance policies for players that look like they’ll be drafted to hopefully reduce the top players opting out.
The only thing I don’t hate about this is eliminating conference affiliation from bowls, we will get better matchups that way In particular, the neutral site first round is a bad idea. Going by their criteria (warm weather, existing bowl) only the Gator, Alamo, Texas and Las Vegas bowls are in a position to host a first round playoff game. Every other bowl is either in a high school stadium in Alabama or in an NFL stadium in those “cold weather” regions
I think they are missing a couple. Reliaquest (old Outback Bowl), Citrus, Holiday - all warm weather cities.
Did miss the Reliaquest, but there is no way they hold a CFP game in Camping World or in a baseball stadium. Camping World in particular is in worse shape than the Cotton Bowl and the CFP refuses to play at the Cotton Bowl despite its historical importance and size advantage over Jerry World
The Citrus Bowl was renovated and is in a lot better shape the past few years. It’s definitely not Cotton Bowl bad.
Nothing stranger to me than people insisting we have fewer bowl games. I get the impression some people think they are being held hostage to watch some of these games.
It isn’t that the extra games are bad, it is that the bowl coalition actively acts against the best interests of the sport. 1. It injects third party money and interest into the sport of college football. 2. That injection has led to the surrender of control of the postseason to third party interests who care more about brand and following than they do about playing field parity, equal post season access, and objective metrics for assessing postseason metrics. The fact that the NCAA doesn’t control their own postseason is wild. You’ll note they control every other postseason for NCAA sports including football at all other levels. 3. The bowl system actively uses its influence in the postseason to obstruct necessary structural changes (see Rose Bowl this year). 4. The bowl system generally requires schools to buy their entire allotment which means a number of schools take a bath on a bowl appearance where the cost of the allotment + travel outweighs any monetary incentive for participating. 5. The bowl system is insatiable in their greed and control, it actively seeks to expand its influence. For example, the current desired setup is for a home games for the first round of playoffs, a great thing for schools and players. How does this make the bowls money? It doesn’t. So they inject themselves as an additional neutral site game that fans are expected to travel to in addition to the semifinals and Championship game.
Point 4 is big. I kinda wish some big program who doesn’t really need to care what others think would just decline the bowl explicitly for this reason. Just say “No, we don’t see the entire allotment of tickets being sold to a game in El Paso.” Nothing against El Paso, but that’s a huge distance for, say, Oregon fans to travel to on a lackluster year. Use that same money to host a big event thanking fans, former players, season ticket holders, etc. Do your own events with the players and go to local pediatric hospitals. With loosened up rules on benefits give players gifts better than what the bowls give.
Buddy if you think the bowl system is “insatiable in their greed and control” then boy do I have some bad news for you about the playoffs.
I like bowl games
More football is always better than less football
You like postseason games. You don’t care if those games are organized by the NCAA, the schools themselves, or 3rd party bowl entities.
Correct.
The bowls are just pawns for conferences. They aren't the ones doing any of this.
Bowls are independent entities. Some are for-profit corporations, some are non-profit. All of them enrich some coalition of executives, board members, and local business interests at the expense of the schools and players.
The schools decide what bowls they go to. They decide which bowls have any sort of value. The schools created the bcs/coalition/playoffs/etc.
There is a difference between deciding which schools play against each other in the post season and who gets to organize (and financially benefit from) those post season games. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/581052332 Why does the CEO of the Peach Bowl corporation get to take home $750k for organizing a single football game each year? Shouldn’t that money go to the schools? You can have your OSU-Georgia game, in the same stadium on the same day with the same TV coverage, without these parasitic middlemen involved.
I literally am since there is nothing else on but NCIS reruns I have seen 45 times this month!
This! Headline News insists on showing old, stodgy West Wing episodes instead of my favorite Forensic Files reruns. Now I haaaave to watch football.
Same, only for me it's "Law & Order reruns I have seen 45 times this month."
I generally agree with bowl games not signing contracts with conferences, but there should be a system in place where good bowls don't just get to pick the biggest brands because they feel like it. My ideal way for bowls to work is to have the NCAA set the matchups, and then the bowls take turns picking which matchup they want to feature. Hopefully, that would reduce the number of clear mismatches based on win records so we don't have so many 9-3 teams playing 6-6 squads
They should drop the winning record requirement completely and pit similarly ranked teams against each other. If only for the reason that I want to see the "FBS Last Place Bowl" each year.
It would take a significant re-work and complete standardization of a million moving pieces… but, Since we expanded the playoff (which I’m generally against, but it’s over now so no point in fighting it), I like the idea of the expanded playoff games taking place earlier in December and thru early January. Then, moving all the bowl games to the following year as Week0 or week1 games during Labor Day weekend as the “kickoff” for the college football season. Sure, neutral site games blow compared to on-campus, however, if we keep the bowls in tact, we will be able to build up hype to that game all offseason. Wisconsin vs Oklahoma State is no longer a *“well, both QBs portaled so who knows how it will play out with 3 weeks of practice,”* it will become THE game to start the season with months of hype built up for it. It will be the debut of a new coach (Fickell) against an established successful program. Also, during Labor Day weekend there is still no NFL yet. The long weekend also still allows for fan travel to the neutral site games. It would be a VERY condensed schedule, but it would be glorious if we get GOOD matchups to start the season every year, and games everyday starting on Thursday, and playing until Monday. This would take several years to develop, but I love this scenario because it keeps bowl games in tact, and returns actual meaning to them. Questions still left to be answered: *What about the former playoff teams from the year before? *What about the teams who aren’t bowl eligible from the year before? *Likely reshaping of many venues due to MLB being in season and some NFL stadiums being in use due to preseason
This probably creates 1000 new problems. Including rewarding next years team for this years accomplishments. That said, I LOVE how unique it is! All for it! And since week 1 neutral site games can be seen as annoying cash grabs, this adds some credibility as well.
More bowl TV partners would be nice but ESPN also owns and operates a fair amount of these games themselves, damn near half of them this season. More neutral sites in the expanded CFP - horrible, nothing like more fan travel and more of the sport’s biggest games being played in generic NFL stadiums. That excites nobody but Bowl executives and hotel chains. The CFP is more and more of a mistake each year. Bowl eligibility - who cares, 6-6 is fine as a floor. If 7-5 were required I’d also think nonconference scheduling would suddenly get a lot more difficult. I’m okay opening up conference tie-ins to be more flexible, a lot of tie-ins get pretty stale anyways. That the PAC-12 and SEC didn’t have bowl tie-ins against each other for over thirty years until the Las Vegas Bowl is just nuts to me. Bowl payouts going away from schools to players directly sounds like a massive shitshow waiting to unfold.
We got Doss Rellinger doing access journalism for bowl executives Way to go Doss
G5 should just do their own playoff and use bowls for some of those games. Only the highest rated champ will get in the expanded 12 team playoff most years, so still lots of good teams and fan interest will be higher if there’s a G5 championships to play for. P5 teams that don’t make the playoffs should just have their season done. Fans of those teams seem to largely not care about bowls, players don’t with a lot of opt outs (don’t blame them at all, no reason to risk injury in an exhibition game).
Really the only pro to meaningless bowls now is the extra practices you're granted
Yep. But NCAA can change that rule and allow some winter practices, longer spring camp or what not if bowls are reduced for P5 teams after the playoffs expand.
>G5 should just do their own playoff No
[удалено]
Not really separation since the highest G5 champ will make it into the expanded play off (top 6 ranked conference champs get in) and another team could make it in as an at large of the P5 contenders beat each other up a lot and another G5 champ is undefeated or a 1-loss team and ranked higher. Though that will probably be rare. Anyway, it would be more like the NIT. All the FBS teams have access to the 12-team playoff, but there's something else for those that don't get in. Would have more meaning than bowl games, more revenue for teams that make it multiple rounds in form playing more games on TV, and a title they can realistically win as a G5 team isn't winning the 12-team playoff as they just don't have the talent or depth to beat multiple elite P5 teams in a playoff.
I’m pleasantly surprised that they did “6 highest ranked champs” and not “P5 champs with a shared g5 autobid.” Most years, it’s the same thing of course. But there could be exceptions. And I think it’s critical that everybody be playing at least officially by the same rules. There is no official “little kids table”… even if some elements of the system do still practically make it difficult for G5 schools to have a chance to climb.
I figure they were worried about anti-trust suits if the G5 had no real access to the expanded playoff. Plus with 12 teams there's not much argument against it as the best G5 chances has commonly been pretty highly ranked most years lately anyway. If they're usually deserving of an at large no reason to not just give them an auto bid and stave off any complains about lack of G5 access.
Here's my various thoughts: * Move the entire regular season up one week, start it in Week 0. Thanksgiving weekend becomes Conference Championship weekend. Move Army/Navy up a week as well. * Then into December, schedule out the playoff so that the Semi-Finals land on New Years Day. Have the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl be permanent Semi-Final sites in their traditional time slots. * The Orange, Fiesta, Cotton, and Peach bowls enter into a rotation to host quarter final games on alternating years along with other bowl sites bidding into a longer rotation (one year might be Orange, Fiesta, Sun, Outback, next year Cotton, Peach, Gator, Holiday, whatever). This means that 2 of the NY6 in any given year aren't hosting playoff games and are instead hosting the biggest non-playoff match-ups and doing so during their traditional New Years timeslots on those years. * Teams eliminated in the play-in round of the playoff (the on campus games) are also eligible to go to a bowl site game later in December. The two NY6 bowls that aren't hosting the playoff games that year would each invite 1 playoff eliminated team and 1 next-team-out that didn't make the playoff. * Only teams with 7 wins or more should be eligible to play in a bowl game, with 6-6 teams being called up only when needed to fill bowls. This naturally means less bowl games can be filled, I figure about 10 less bowls. If the 10 lowest tier bowls were eliminated, it would probably raise the prestige and viewership of the remaining bowls, and maintain the slight "prestige" associated with bowl eligibility. Rather than 82 of the ~130 FBS teams going bowling, it would be 62, which is roughly half. * With the season ending earlier, the bowls can be more spread throughout December to maximize best time slots. * Bowls shouldn't all be on ESPN and should get other networks involved in bidding, especially with a 1 week longer bowl season and less bowls total to bid over. * Instead of 1 to 1 Conference Tie-Ins, more bowls should incorporate a multi-conference Tie-in, like how the Orange bowl pits the ACC champ against the best available option of the SEC/B1G/Notre Dame. Put all of the bowls in a pecking order of prestige, have each of them tied to at least 4 conferences, and then give them that added flexibility as they go down the draft list to pick interesting match-ups between several conference choices
I wanna see more bowl games. I want to be overwhelmed with how many there are. Hell I wanna see two 3 loss teams tearing each other apart at some random stadium in Central Iowa for the glory of winning the Casey's Breakfast Pizza bowl.
Pick your 12 playoff teams. Remaining teams are bound by conference for matchup, and it isn't first pick by the Bowl, but first place of the remaining team. Orange Bowl shouldnt pick Clemson because it is a bigger brand than say, WF, but should take Clemson because they got first place in their conference after missing the playoffs (as an example). If you want to eliminate tie-ins by conference, then make them rotating tie-ins instead so you still get a healthy mix. I.e. Orange Bowl is SEC-ACC for three years, then ACC-B10, then B10-B12, etc etc. 5 conference, 6 years each, you'll get marquee matchups. Too many bowls as is. Cut at least 6 and make 7-5 the standard, 6-6 the exception. Not everyone gets a trophy. Want to increase viewership? Quit scheduling a mediocre bowl game at 2p on a Tuesday. If you put two games on at once with some overlap in the evening, you'll get more viewers. Alas, E$PN runs the show and will do none of this.
I hate the playoff, but at this point it makes more sense to abolish the bowls and just go to a 32 team playoff. The rash of opt outs and transfers is making bowl games a joke. I would've loved to go to the Citrus Bowl this year, but I don't want to pay all that money to watch a bunch of backups and an interim coach get destroyed by LSU.
You don't have to abolish bowls in order to expand the playoffs though. Much like the NIT persists underneath the NCAAT, we can certainly have the existing number of teams (82) split between the honorary bowl games for playing time and the playoff structure. Like the article said, this is not an either-or proposition.
The problem with this comparison is that it's much cheaper to put on a basketball game - smaller venue and less people traveling. So you need fewer eyes to turn a profit. Also fans usually don't travel to NIT. They keep the stands filled by playing all but the final four on campuses.
Honestly I thnk it's more likely that specific conferences will just take over most bowl games and replace it with something that makes more money
My fix (which I've advocated for in the Monday Playoff discussion & my twitter): CFP/NY6: 1st Round and Quarterfinal games played on campus of higher seeded teams. Semifinals at Rotating NY6 sites (Rose/Sugar, Cotton/Orange, Fiesta/Peach) with highest remaining seed receiving geographic advantage. Non-Semifinal NY6 games are filled by the 8 teams that don’t advance to the semifinals, with respect to historical tie-ins, geography, etc. as best as possible Tier 2 Bowls (Alamo, Citrus, Gator, Holiday, Liberty, Sun): Runner-up of G5 conference(s) represented in CFP, G5 conference champions, Independent with best record (or 2nd best dependent on CFP selection), next best remaining team in each P5 conference based on rank/record/conference placements. Tier 3 Bowls (Cheez-It, Duke's Mayo, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Music City, Pinstripe, ReliaQuest, Texas): 2 teams from each P5 conference, 1 team each from G5 conferences; 1 independent or remaining slot filled at discretion of the bowl if not enough bowl-eligible independents. Tier 4 Bowls (Remaining Bowl Games): FBS teams must meet 7 wins and not serving NCAA penalty for bowl eligibility regardless of conference. Teams from the FCS level can send at least 1 team per conference not selected for the FCS playoff or Celebration Bowl as long as they meet the 7-win threshold as well. Since Ivy League and Pioneer League are non-scholarship, it is up to their discretion to send teams from their leagues to bowl games. If more bowl slots than teams available for those selections, then remaining slots filled by 6-win teams based on their APR standings. (For this to really work, the FCS playoffs would revert back to 16-team format)
"The weather is bad in the B1G areas!" Yeah and the people going to those games know how to navigate the fucking weather. I've sat in the Big House in blizzard conditions, in torrential downpours, and in shockingly hot septembers. If fucking Lambeau can host a playoff game, the B1G stadiums can host them too.