College Football Bowls 2017-18

Here we are about to start the College Football Silly Season, aka bowl season. For the past few years, I have written a post at the beginning of the bowl season. It is usually tongue in cheek with some observations and criticisms. Let's look at this year's bowl picture.

There will be 40 division one college bowl games this season. The championship game is between two teams that have already played a bowl game. That leaves 39 games needing 78 teams. There are 130 division one college football programs. That means approximately 62% of the teams get a bowl invitation, not a very exclusive honor. A team must win six games during the season to be bowl eligible. This year there were 81 eligible teams, so only three drew the short stick. The ACC won the prize this year with 10 teams in the bowls. Almost all the games are televised by ESPN/ABC including all the playoff games and the other major bowls in the College Football Playoff mix. In fact, ESPN created and produces several of the bowl games. They needed college football content during December. The bowls start on December 16th and end with the championship game on January 8th. Wikipedia has a good recap of the games here. 

Of the 40 bowl games, exactly three of them have a real meaning. So about 92% of the games are just exhibitions, "friendlies" in soccer terms. Some people keep track of how the various conferences fair. Maybe that matters a little. The bowls are a way for cities to spur tourism and an economic boost, sponsors to get publicity, ESPN and other networks to have content, provide events for vacant venues, and maybe provide a perk for teams with mediocre seasons.   

This year, my favorite team, the Florida Gators, is not playing in a bowl. My alma mater, USF Bulls, is playing in the Birmingham Bowl on 12/23. The Bulls at 9-2 will play the 6-6 Texas Tech Red Raiders. My local favorite, TCU, will play 12/28 in the Valero Alamo Bowl. The #15 Horned Frogs will play the #13 Stanford Cardinal. Which team do you think will have the bigger fan support.  

There are always some fun facts and figures involved in this mostly silly season. Here are a few: 

• The Bahamas Bowl is played in a 15,000 seat soccer stadium in a country that has no idea what American football is. We have larger and better high school stadiums here in Texas.
• The Goodyear Cotton Bowl is played at AT&T Stadium (Cowboys Stadium) in Arlington Texas. 
• The Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl is played in the actual Cotton Bowl Stadium in Dallas.
• There are some very long bowl names as they try to squeeze in the sponsor name, city and bowl. Some examples are:
• Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl
• San Diego County Credit Union Holiday Bowl
• Military Bowl presented by Northrop Grumman
• Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual
• There is a heated contest this year for the funniest bowl name:
• The Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl
• The Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg
• The Walk-On's Independence Bowl in Shreveport. FYI, Walk-On's is a restaurant & bar chain.
• My old favorite Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. Are the potatoes famous or is it Idaho? This game also has the distinction of being played on the Boise State blue field.

Most of the games are of little interest to the majority of us football fans and the country. I'll watch a few. Obviously, the three playoff games are of interest. I'll watch the USF and TCU games. I'll probably watch the Peach Bowl where UCF plays Auburn. I'm interested to see how the undefeated American Athletic Conference (AAC) champion stacks up against a good SEC team. Other games will mostly depend on what else I have to do when they air. 

The Bowls are a tradition so I'm sure they will continue. I'm old enough to remember when there were fewer than 10 bowls and it was an honor to be invited to play in one. They also rarely decided a real national champion. Some years there was more than one #1 team depending on which poll you read.  

The current playoff system is an improvement, but the rest of the bowls are still mostly inconsequential. I personally think we need to expand the playoffs to eight teams although six with the top two getting first-round byes would be OK too. Let's at least get all the power five conference champions into the mix. 

So, get the remote, snacks, and beverages ready. Bowl season starts 12/16. Let the games begin.

wjh