NFL Tickets
The NCAA FBS post season of today is filled with over commercialized bowl games featuring teams that have no business doing anything other than going back to the weight room and prepping for the next season.
Sadly due to a love of money and acceptance of mediocrity, we as college football fans are forced to endure match-ups like the Central Michigan Chippewas and the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers in the Little Caesars Bowl. It hurts my soul more and more every year to read down the list of bowl names and to see some of the teams that make it into said bowls.
Yes this is another cry for change in the way that the FBS post season is conducted. The shot callers got it right when they decided to institute a four team playoff starting in 2014, but further revision is desperately needed. I’m not advocating for more teams and thus more games or a bigger playoff system. I want to see fewer teams. I want going to a bowl game to mean more. I want to see the minimum number of games to become bowl eligible raised to seven.
Currently a team has to win six games to be able to play in a bowl game, which means that a school can finish 6-6 on the year and end up going bowling. Following the 2012 season, twelve such teams made it to bowls. That is twelve too many. Going to a bowl game is supposed to be a reward for good performance throughout the season, but 6-6 isn’t good, it is average. Average shouldn’t be rewarded.
Let’s crunch some numbers. Of the twelve 6-6 teams that went to bowl games four of them played against fellow 6-6 teams, so I’m going to toss those two bowl games out. The remaining eight came out with a 4-4 record; an average record. Four 6-6ers competed against 7-5 teams, and they went 2-2 in those games. Average. The other four matched-up with teams that were 9-3 or better and ended up going 2-2. That is yet again par for the course.
Mediocrity reigned supreme in the case of the .500 football teams this bowl season and as a college football fan I demand better than average from my sport. Nobody looked at the Pittsburgh Panthers and Ole Miss Rebels and said, “I hope I get to watch those two teams play each other in the BBVA Compass Bowl”.
By giving the 6-6 teams a boot, six bowl games would be forced to fade quietly into the night, and that is fine. When I read down the list of bowls I find it difficult to pick only six that I want to see done away with.
When it comes to bowl eligibility the minimum mark should be at least seven wins. That would put a team at 7-5 for the regular season, and even if that team were to play for a conference championship and lose they would still be 7-6, so above average. The era of too many pointless bowl games populated by too many mediocre teams needs to come to an end for the good of the sport of college football.
Share 
