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2008 MTV VMA show
2008 Great Miami River Days
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2008 MTV VMA arrivals
Home > Blogs > Upon Further Review > Archives > 2008 > May > 16 > Entry
Even the NCAA is scared of growing bowls
Interesting note from Tony Barnhart of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution following ACC meetings:
4. NCAA puts bowls on notice: The NCAA sent out an interesting letter to all the bowls last week. The letter essentially said that while the NCAA has certified 34 bowls for next season, that certification does not guarantee that a team will be available for any bowl. It is a pre-emptive move by the NCAA to ward off litigation in case there aren’t enough teams with at least six wins to fill the bowls. Some of the bowl execs I talked to want to know: “If you were worried about having enough teams, why did you certify two more bowls?”
This could get nasty. Right now a bowl cannot take a team unless it has a 6-6 record or better. This December a bowl could be in a situation where it has to petition the NCAA for a waiver to take a 5-7 team. If that happens the NCAA will get hammered in the court of public opinion. And it should.
College coaches are thrilled. At the end of any season, even if it’s considered unsuccessful, if “bowl appearance” is attached then alumni are calmed. Even better, if you can win a bowl game, despite finishing 7-6, you end the season with a victory.
The cities love bowls because almost anything surrounding football turns to gold. No matter how small the bowl or poor the teams, fans will still come, eat your food, stay in your hotels, maybe even come back another time if they have a good experience.
But who to blame for the growing number of bowls? The cities aren’t concerned about watered-down postseasons, they just want visitors. The NCAA technically is certifying these bowls, but it isn’t inventing them.
And the bowls themselves? Even they can say enough is enough:
“There’s a lot of concern in our association about adding even one more game,” said Scott Ramsey, executive director of the Music City Bowl and chairman of the Football Bowl Association. “One of the worst things that could happen down the road is for the organizers of a game to spend all year preparing for it and then not have enough teams to play. It would give the bowl system a collective black eye.”
We’re past the point when a bowl is an award for an excellent season. It’s not even an award for a pretty good season. If you have an average year, you’ll get a postseason, please your athletic director, please your bigger-money supporters, please your town and continue the downward spiral of December college football.
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