Oh Boy !!!!! More Bowl Games !!!!!
Thirty two bowl games just isn’t enough. ESPN owning 5 bowl games just isn’t enough. Nope, we need more college bowl games!.
So, at least two more games will be added for the the 2008 season, boosting the total to 34. Which means that 57% of all D-1 football teams will make bowl games. ESPN has petitioned the NCAA for approval for a new bowl game to be held in St. Petersburg, Florida, pairing the Big East and Conference USA. The new game - if approved - would give the Big East seven bowl possibilities for the conference’s eight teams. In 2007, five of the eight Big East teams has winning records, while Louisville (6-6), Pittsburgh (5-7) and Syracuse (2-10) were the bottom three. Conference USA now has a possible eight bowl tie-ins as well.
The St. Petersburg bowl would make the Tampa Bay area the fifth community to host two bowl games along with Orlando (Champs Sports, Capital One), New Orleans (New Orleans, Sugar); Phoenix/Glendale, Ariz. (Insight, Fiesta); and San Diego (Poinsettia, Holiday).
Then there is the Congressional Bowl. This one will feature either Navy or Army against an ACC team. So Navy gets to play against the ACC team that didn’t qualify for the BCS Championship series, and isn’t going to the
Champs Sports
Chick-fil-A
Emerald
Gaylord Hotels Music City
Meineke Car Care
MPC Computers
Toyota Gator Bowl Games
Of course, the ACC only had 8 teams with winning records, but hey Maryland was 6-6.
As the bowl games proliferate, more and more teams are finding out what Texas Tech did at this year’s Gator Bowl - it wasn’t that good for the bottom line.
So in mid-December lean back in the lounger and take in the St. Petersburg Bowl Pittsburgh-Houston matchup. Then get ready for the classic Navy-North Carolina St. battle.
I can hardly wait.
April 17, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Its almost like little league. Everyone gets a trophy!
April 18, 2008 at 1:37 am
Some historians still refer to the St. Petersburg Bowl as the Leningrad Bowl.
April 18, 2008 at 5:31 am
I think it would be a lot more fun for the kids if we didn’t keep score. Get rid of the nasty competitive side of the game.
April 18, 2008 at 5:31 am
Texas is now reporting a $68,000 shortfall on its trip to the Holiday Bowl. Selling only 3,600 of its allotment of 11,000 ticket helped bring about the loss.
More and more colleges are finding bowl trips to be losing propositions to their bottom line, but that doesn’t stop ESPN and others lobbying for additional games.
April 18, 2008 at 6:51 am
How many bowl games would y’all say you watch in a given year? I just watch the big ones, and then the Cotton/Holiday/Alamo run, and that’s normally about it. Definitely less than a third of them. Probably about 25% of all bowls.
And considering that the college football regular season is the best thing that’s ever existed on the planet earth, it’s just sad how shitty the postseason has become.
April 18, 2008 at 6:59 am
I’ll watch any that I think are compelling matchups, but I can safely say that I don’t watch more than half.
April 18, 2008 at 7:01 am
Gresham’s Law: “Bad money drives out good.”
The NCAA: “Let’s print more money to really drive home the point.”
April 18, 2008 at 7:06 am
Can’t wait for the Vance Refrigeration Bowl
April 18, 2008 at 7:08 am
srr - You can’t put a price on things like Mack rediscovering “toughness” and that deal with the stepson doing intra-game fumble drils.
April 18, 2008 at 1:15 pm
So this will leave UT fans now with 2 bowls that mean something significant - the national championship game and whatever 2nd tier bowl the Longhorns make this season - and 32 games that have no meaning at all.
Boy, that sure beats all hell out of an 8 or 16 team playoff, huh?
April 18, 2008 at 1:27 pm
To me I just see it as another opportunity to prove myself again (and over & over, as it were) to my detractors. I relish the thought of reaching another bowl & getting a victory.
A playoff system would be too high-stakes. It’s not fair to compare me/our offense to the offense du-jour of those gimmick, high-falutin’ teams year in&out. I like to stick with the basics - it’s worked real well for me these last 10 years …
April 18, 2008 at 7:00 pm
I often will watch whatever bowl game is on the television set on a given December night.
If you’re out of pot and there are no hookers available, what else is there to do?
April 18, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Go out and buy some pot and then bang a pornstar?
April 20, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Are there going to be enough 6 win teams to handle the extra games? Usually I think there will be, but what about that inevitable year when there aren’t? Cancel one?
We should just let everybody play two, one in december and one in January.
April 23, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I would not sleep on pittsburgh this year, so you may see them in a “real” bowl, in spite of your joking here.
If you like money , I suspect there will be plenty to be made betting on those panthers early in the 2008 season, until the books catch up.
April 24, 2008 at 11:22 am
If there had only been more bowls, we could have gone to ones we could’ve won - and I’d still be Mr. Big at A&M - Boss in Charge!