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The way teams are selected for Bowl games


GJGood

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This year with 80 FBS bowl teams needed to fill 40 games we saw three 'ineligible' 5-7 teams granted eligibility based on their APR. Two of the three teams (Minnesota and Nebraska) granted this special eligibility were then able to go to bowl games based on the games' conference tie-ins.

Assuming that due to $$$ the number of bowl games will not decrease how would like to see the situation of not having enough eligible teams handled in the future? I think being an up and coming MAC school fanbase that Zipsnation may have some interesting opinions on how bowl teams are selected.

Also with the way things shook out we have a bowl game that pits Colorado State against Nevada. Both of these teams are members of the Mountain West Conference but they did not meet in the regular season. How do you feel about this? How would you feel if Akron had a bowl game against a MAC West school that wasn't on the regular season schedule?

Speaking for myself I wouldn't like a situation like this and I feel like the MWC and the bowls should have been able to negotiaite with each other to avoid this type of matchup we are seeing this year.

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I just realized I didn't give my own opinion on the 5-7 teams selection process for bowls.

If we are going to have 40 or more bowls we are going to have to have a provision allowing for losing record teams in place as there will be many season where it is needed. I actually like what they did in going with APR as the factor determining which 5-7 teams were eligible this year. I think basing it on academic performance is a good way to do it although I do wish they could do it based on this year's team somehow instead of using the APR from a previous school year.

My issue with the bowls this year was not with who was declared eligible but with how they were then selected. To me it seems that teams who are granted eligibility simply because of a vacancy of normally qualifying teams should have to go to the lowest payout bowls regardless of conference tie-ins to bowls. I have not done the research but my guess is that normally ineligible 5-7 teams Nebraska and Minnesota are receiving larger bowl payouts than many 6-6. 7-5, or even 8-4 eligibility standard reaching teams are getting. Shouldn't the teams that qualify via the established rules be granted preference over those who got lucky in the fact that there weren't enough eligible teams?

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I really like the APR qualifier, although, I am sure there are many of us on here who have experienced the reality of what is often done to award "grades" to star athletes. It's hard to compare school's player achievement entirely accurately, based on that.

But, what I like about it most is that it's a little bit of a reward for STUDENT/Athletes at a particular school who may not have done well enough on the field to warrant a bid, but clearly understand the meaning of being a COLLEGE student. I'm guessing none of the kids at these schools were proclaiming that "We ain't come to play school" on their twitter accounts.

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Good topic, GJ!

To me part of the excitement of the bowl season is seeing out of conference match-ups among fairly even teams on a neutral field. This is dramatically different from pay games on the fields of bigger programs or powder puff I-AA games in the OOC. Also, distance is not prohibitive for bowl games. We could end up playing Hawaii...when/how would that otherwise happen?! I think we had them scheduled once, but it fell through. I'd be highly disappointed if we ended up playing another MAC school in a bowl game. It would reinforce the locals' proconceived notion that UA is small-time and does nothing to market UA outside of the MAC footprint. This year, people in Utah were given a reason to pay attention to UA and Akron, Ohio.

As for the selection of below .500 bowl teams, I like the suggestion of basing it on the academic performance of 5-7 teams. I'd be perfectly satisfied if we ended up playing 5-7 Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Stanford, or Baylor. Give the true STUDENT-athletes a reward for their hard work.

Overall though, I think the entire system should be overhauled with one true preseason game followed immediately by an 8 game conference schedule and conference championship games late in October. Then, based on conference results, conference champions and selected at-large teams with consideration from last year's OOC results would be placed in a 16 team single elimination bracket to determine the national champion. All other teams would play four OOC games (guaranteed 2 home and 2 away) against similar RPI programs that determine strength of conference rankings for next year's at-large tournament selections. As teams are eliminated from the tournament, they continue playing a total of four post-season games (excluding conference championships) against similarly matched RPI programs. That is, two teams eliminated in the first round of the tournament could be paired for their second post-season games and then have two additional games after that. After each post-season round, the RPI would be recalculated based on results to determine the next round of match-ups.

This way every team begins the season eligible to play for the national championship and all games have significance in building a program and objectively advancing the stature of a conference. No more whining from B1G fans about SEC preferential treatment, etc. Put up or shut up. No more pay games, no more 8 home game seasons for schools like OSU, no more D1-AA games, no more OOC schedule as a preseason to prepare for conference play. I think that in the end it would be more financially lucrative for ALL programs and be more interesting to both casual and passive fans.

Edited by UAZipster0305
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If I'm not mistaken there were 3 5-7 teams that made bowl games (Minnesota, Nebraska, & SDSU). The only one that got into a bowl game with a decent payout (>1 Million) was Minnesota (1.2 Million) and there was already an at-large team (CMU) selected to play in it as the ACC couldn't fill their slot.

I'm not certain besides the MAC, who had +1 bowl team, what other conferences had enough teams to meet their bowl requirements plus fill the void of another conference who didn't. I feel it was a bit of a coincidence that you saw B1G teams fill BIG bowls. It just happened to be the schools with the highest APR were from the conference that failed to make enough teams bowl eligible.

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If I'm not mistaken there were 3 5-7 teams that made bowl games (Minnesota, Nebraska, & SDSU). The only one that got into a bowl game with a decent payout (>1 Million) was Minnesota (1.2 Million) and there was already an at-large team (CMU) selected to play in it as the ACC couldn't fill their slot.

I'm not certain besides the MAC, who had +1 bowl team, what other conferences had enough teams to meet their bowl requirements plus fill the void of another conference who didn't. I feel it was a bit of a coincidence that you saw B1G teams fill BIG bowls. It just happened to be the schools with the highest APR were from the conference that failed to make enough teams bowl eligible.

The third team was San Jose State of the Mountain West. They went too first year and yet unproven Cure Bowl in Orlando.

The Mountain West ended up with many more teams than slots if you consider 5-7 SJSU getting an at-large as well as two MWC schools playing each other in a bowl. The PAC-12 also had ten teams playing in bowls which exceeds their bow tie-ins as well. The Big Ten got 10 of their 14 in bowls I believe.

Again though my issue is not so much WHO got in as WHERE they went. The three 5-7 teams should have gone to the three lowest payout bowls with vacancies left open in my opinion, preferably with the one third in APR going to the least payout bowl vacancy and the best 5-7 APR going to the third lowest payout bowl vacancy. Instead they had Minnesota and Nebraska going to the same bowls they would have if they were 6-6. This left the Mountain West playing a conference game in a bowl.

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Perhaps the MWC teams choose to play one another? There was already a MWC team in the Cure Bowl, the Foster Farms Bowl is mehh, and spending a week in Phoenix in December sounds much better than Detroit.

I get what you're saying, but those low paying bowls have contracts with conferences. The MAC and MWC are contractually required to provide teams to the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl assuming they have a team bowl eligible to play. They can't just skip out and leave the FIPB with a 5-7 team.

I don't think we should be discussing how 5-7 teams making bowls should work. I feel we should be discussing how to mitigate the chances of a 5-7 team making a bowl game period. This is going to become a growing problem as fewer and fewer schools schedule FCS teams that give them a guarantee win. The long term solution I suppose is allow no additional bowl games and wait for more FCS to make the FBS jump, however, there doesn't seem to be many FCS teams looking nor many conferences looking to expand...for now.

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I like all comments so far. IMHO I think the only way the P5 conferences can make an impact in their favor, is to do nothing at the NCAA level. No rules from the NCAA will benefit us or our conference. I think there's potential for P5 conferences to take advantage of the field by getting as many teams Bowl eligible as possible. I highly doubt there will be many years with 80 teams meeting the requirements to get to the post season bowls. P5 conference teams need to find a way to balance in their OOC games between $$ games, opponents that will sell tickets and potentially give wins. The p5 conferences could stack-the-deck a bit when it comes to qualifying their teams for Bowls. It certainly seems that the past two-seasons have been stacked in Akron's favor (mostly because the East stinks). I'm not sure if there's any NCAA rules regulating that, but I haven't heard of them.

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