Pac-12 passes rule requiring 6 wins for bowl eligibility

Kind of agree with Leach here, pretty dumb to limit your teams that have a chance of making it. Does potentially open up more spots for AAC teams if it comes down to it.

https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/pac-12-passes-rule-requiring-6-wins-bowl-eligibility

Washington State coach Mike Leach called the conference’s policy, which is in effect for this season, “a solution searching for a problem.”

“If we had a 5-7 team lucky enough to make a bowl, they could probably use the practice and the players would probably appreciate the chance to play another game,” Leach said. “Why should we limit opportunities when other conferences aren’t?”

There will again be 39 FBS bowl games this season.

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I know it won’t happen, but they need to reduce the number of bowl games and make 7 wins the minimum requirement to be bowl eligible.

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I would be ok with drastically reducing the bowl games and making the cut off 8 wins. The current bowl slate, in my mind, is the equivalent of 3 or 4 high school teams from each district making the playoffs. So many teams have no business whatsoever participating in the post-season. Reducing the participation also means schools aren’t taking huge losses sending their teams to games they shouldn’t be playing.

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Most of the lesser bowls only exist to put $$$$ into local communities.

While I have no problem with that aspect, I don’t like the fact that those communities are fleecing the teams by forcing them to buy X number of tickets at face value.

The communities should support the bowl if they insist on having one. I am sure the NCAA benefits $$$ in some way and thus is also fleecing the schools.

For the fan: a % is just bad football with tiny crowds. Its hard to keep track of them all.

In the big picture: all but the upper tier bowls are essentially chamber of commerce / tourist events.

In general: they either have enough community/corporate support to survive or they go under.

Its an odd system but isn’t going anywhere.

Most of the lower bowls are just there to get live programming on ESPN during a time that would be dead otherwise. Bowl games draw more ratings than college basketball, early NBA games, and most other live sports. That’s why ESPN has taken control of most of those games and FOX is starting to get in the game as well.

Again, since it’s on TV, they aren’t really concerned with attendance…all about the ad dollars and live sports are basically big ticket items these days due to being DVR-proof.

Most of the bowls aren’t really money-losers for the schools anymore…more the conferences as they reimburse the schools for any losses out of the bowl $$$ pool. Positives for the schools is that they get two more weeks of practice which is usually good for young guys that didn’t get much playing time and they do get exposure on TV which has an affect on donations to the school.

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By the way, though this was a funny response to the original news story:

https://twitter.com/stevebullard/status/1003762602344964096

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Oh, I didn’t realize this. My overall opinion still stands, but I retract my comment about losing money. Just trying to keep it honest here.

While I disagree with the new policy, it’s hardly the egregious miscalculation we see from the conference in other football matters, including and especially the approach to scheduling. (And there’s a major whiff on that front once again.)

With the self-imposed postseason ban, we’re in slightly more nuanced territory because of the recruiting calendar.

The early-signing window, which has quickly became the primary signing window, falls on or about Dec. 20. This creates a significant conflict for coaches trying to prepare for the early bowl games.

What’s more, the teams that would be affected by the new postseason policy — the five-win teams — will either have just completed a coaching change, be smack in the middle of a coaching change, or have their attention focused entirely on securing a quality recruiting class.

Hauling that five-win team across the country for a meaningless, money-losing postseason experience probably won’t be atop the priority list.