Not to get too far ahead....but what are the bowl tie-ins?
- Thread starter ttowncoug
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Pac-12 solidifies bowl lineup for 2024 and 2025 seasons
The Pac-12 today announced it has retained all of its existing bowl opportunities for the 2024 and 2025 football seasons. As part of the agreements, the league has worked in conjunction with the ACC, Big 12 and Big Ten conferences to solidify each affiliation, including: DIRECTV Holiday Bowl...
pac-12.com
Yeah, pretty much. What I haven't seen, though, is how this will work in practice. E.g., if WSU and Oregon State are, say, 7-5, with the Cougs beating the Beavs when they play, does that mean WSU would go to the Alamo, or would the Alamo have the ability to choose two Big 12 teams instead? Is it just in the discretion of the respective bowls as to whether they want to invite a Pac-12 team in order of priority? Is there a floor where, if bowl eligible, the Pac-12 teams at least would go to the lowest-priority bowls with those tie-ins, or would they risk getting shipped off somewhere else ESPN determines? I don't believe these kinds of things have been made clear anywhere, but if I had to bet, it basically would boil down to the bowl promoters having the right but not the obligation to invite the Pac-12 teams in order of priority. I would expect the bowls to lean toward wanting to include Pac-12 teams in most spots if their resumes are decent since that would let them avoid things like two teams from the same conference, who likely already played, squaring off.
The answer is sort of. Bowl tie-ins now have "or" incorporated into the selection process.
It's not something to worry about either way. With the portal, NIL, and the 12-team NCAA playoff, the bowl game opt outs are going to be off the charts. Fans aren't going to be attending bowl games much longer.
It's not something to worry about either way. With the portal, NIL, and the 12-team NCAA playoff, the bowl game opt outs are going to be off the charts. Fans aren't going to be attending bowl games much longer.
Yeah, outside of the 6 CFP bowls (Rose, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta, Cotton, and Peach) the bowls are meaningless now. They provide some extra practice time for the underclassmen, and maybe a showcase for some of them to work toward a NIL deal and portal opportunities. For juniors and seniors who have either NFL aspirations or existing portal interest, they only provide an opportunity to get hurt and lose their deal. There's little reason for the best players on any team to play.
Opt-outs are going to increase, probably to the point where teams decline bowl invitations. As those increase, the quality of play in those bowls is going to collapse. That will lead to rapidly diminishing interest in buying tickets, and reduced media value...which will lead to a reduction in the number of bowls. It's not hard to imagine there being no bowls outside of the CFP within a few years...or the few remaining games being all-star games that are just scouting tryouts for the best players who didn't make the CFP.
This is probably true, and I think it is going to be one more nail in the coffin of college football. The gap between top 20-30 programs and the other 100 programs is getting bigger and bigger. Basically there is going to be 24 teams at the start of any given season competing for 12 spots in the CFP, and the remaining 100 teams will have little to play for after the first month of the season. The bowl game was a realistic goal for most teams even into November, even if many didn't live up to the hype. I personally think that teams should list the bowl at TBN on the schedule and make it clear to players that the bowl is an expectation for the season, not an optional add-on.
If this all plays out as predicted, I think more and more teams outside the Power 4 will start to look at FCS/DII as a much more realistic option to keep football on campus.
The drop in scholarships to FCS/d2 is steep. The quality of football will plummet if that happens.
What is the quality trend of football at the high school level?
The number of players, quality coaches and fans seem down across the board with wealth concentrated at very few schools.
The number of players, quality coaches and fans seem down across the board with wealth concentrated at very few schools.
High school football seems to be weak (at least locally) in comparison to how it has been. You've got a few local stud athletes, but overall, my assessment is not as many kids are playing football. You sort of have to commit to one sport these days and you might be a great athlete, but you are playing hoops or baseball as your coach doesn't want you to play high school sports.
Have they ever been meaningful? I don't disagree with anything you say here but will add that the proliferation of bowl games over the last how many years has not helped one bit. When it got to the point where 6-6 got you into a bowl, the lower ones truly did become meaningless.
I agree with that. And remember, in some cases you didn't even have to be 6-6. There are some years when there aren't enough eligible teams for the bowl berths, so 5-7 teams get picked for bowls based on APR score.
But, my larger point was that now - outside of the CFP games, any meaning that even the bigger, more popular games had is gone. At the end of the season, 12 teams will be playing for something. The other 110 teams will be playing for an extra 2 weeks of practice.
