In New College Football Bowl Format, We’re All Losers

Unless your television is fixed on Lifetime Network or TLC, you’ve probably watched at least one bowl game at the end of this college football season. With 41 bowls on the full bowl season schedule, there’s no question that December and January have been loaded with at least some sort of college football. Sure, advertisers absolutely love this, as it’s yet another time slot to shove all kinds of products down our collective throats, but unfortunately, fans of college football are suffering because there’s simply no need for this many bowl games.

In keeping with this new accepted “Participation Trophy” culture, there were three college football teams that participated in a bowl game with a record of 5-7. Just stop and reread that last sentence. That’s absolutely embarrassing. Gone are the days when bowl games were a means of celebrating a successful season as just about any school with extra pads and helmets can compete in a bowl game. Fans anticipating watching their teams compete in prestigious bowls such as the Outback Bowl or Citrus Bowl, instead get to tell their friends and family about the time they watched the Raycom Media Camellia Bowl or the Taxslayer Bowl. When it was once prideful for students to dawn their favorite postseason gear now are almost certainly laughed at when seen around town sporting a “Taxslayer Bowl Champions” long sleeve t-shirt.

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As with just about everything else in life, it’s all about the money. The NCAA, who’ve modeled themselves after FIFA, are quickly gaining on the soccer entity as the most corrupt sports organization in the history of sports, or organizations. However, as long as the money keeps pouring in, fans of college football will be forced to watch meaningless games in damn near laughable bowls. I mean where would college football fans be had they not been able to see the San Jose State Spartans (5-7) take on the Georgia State Panthers (6-6) in the new tradition of the AutoNation Cure Bowl. Give me a break.

Most college football fans will point out that the entire bowl system is out of order, from the playoff to the dumpster fires. Having said that, there seems to be an easy fix that will make both the football frenzied fans of this country happy, and the money grabbing executives of the companies who want a piece of that sweet collegiate pie.

First, the committee must expand the playoff from 4 teams to 8. This would include all 5 power-conference champions and 3 wild cards. This way you could effectively eliminate the questions and validity from teams just ‘outside’ the top-4, while also eliminating that worthless program that ESPN airs every Tuesday just to tease viewers and egg on arguments. In this format, the “New Year’s Six” bowls would rotate amongst each for quarterfinal and semifinal rights. For example, one year might see the Rose, Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar Bowls as playoff quarterfinals with the Peach and Cotton Bowls serving as the semifinals. This format would repair the prestige of popular second tier bowls such as the Outback, Citrus, and Holiday Bowl. Even more importantly you could cut the cord on useless games like the aforementioned Camellia Bowl.

By implementing a rule that all bowl eligible teams must have at least a .500 record would eliminate the scenarios where teams with losing records participating in college footballs ‘postseason.’ By setting the amount of bowl games to 38 would satisfy just about everyone, except of course the NCAA who only operate to watch the world burn. It’s no secret that football is truly America’s pastime. Those who are willing to argue that it’s still baseball were born prior to the fall of Nazi occupied Germany. That being said, the money will continue to pour into college football, and thus create even more ridiculous bowl match-ups, further disillusioning what it really means to participate in a college football bowl.

(As a side note, props to the University of Missouri who declined a bowl invitation with a 5-7 record, so there is still hope college football fans, it’s slim, but it’s there.)