Putting the money you would spend on bowl tickets and travel to the WeWill Collective would be a much better alternative.
Do bowl games matter anymore?
- Thread starter Cy4All
- Start date
Putting the money you would spend on bowl tickets and travel to the WeWill Collective would be a much better alternative.
I think the influx of additional bowl games combined with the CFP have really taken off the luster. Back when it was a more exclusive club and bowl games helped indicate national champions, bowls were exciting. Anymore I almost just look at college bowl games like I do the NFL's Pro Bowl. Boring exhibition matchups. I'll watch the CFP but am otherwise in NFL mode.
How many bowl games truly impacted the national championship conversation between, say 1990 and 1994 (the five years before the Bowl Alliance, which begot the BCS, which begot the CFP)? Without going back to look, I'd guess the average was less than two per year, and that was with a couple of split national champions in 1990 and 1991.
I really have yet to hear why two teams you don't care about playing in a bowl that you don't care about would make a bowl matchup that would have interested you 25 years ago seem less interesting. Why was the Rose Bowl more compelling 25 years ago when it matched a 10-2 team against a 9-3 team, but a similar matchup now is less appealing because a 6-6 team is playing a 7-5 team in Idaho two weeks before the Rose Bowl?
It's just a weird opinion that people float repeatedly, but never defend, and a bunch of other people just nod along in agreement without ever thinking about. There's a word for this - Saudade. Nostalgia for something that never really existed.
They had to have mattered more to the players at some point, and the fans too as a result. I don't know if data would support this, but opt outs didn't really seem like a thing until semi recently
Only for Iowa fans so their "off-the-wall" fan base like @DunkeyFeller as his buddy Franisdaman (guy must have a permanent stiffy for Keegan Murray as he posts all twitter feeds about him and of his NBA game stats at 1 am), can rewatch them until next season with friends. I ventured off on my weekly visit to HR to get some laughs, weird bunch of so-called fans over their. They still hate BF though. Love the Clone fans on there!
The Bowl Coalition ran '92-'94, Bowl Alliance '95-'97, then BCS starting in '98. So back up the comparison a few years.
The Rose Bowl wasn't really a factor in championship determination for much of the '80s and early '90s, because neither the Big Ten nor Pac-10 had top-shelf teams.
(AP rankings prior to game)
1986 - Champion: Penn State
#1 Miami (11-0) vs #2 Penn State (11-0)
1987 - Champion: Miami
#1 Oklahoma (11-0) vs #2 Miami (11-0)
1988 - Champion: Notre Dame
#1 Notre Dame (11-0) vs #3 West Virginia (11-0)
#2 Miami (10-1) vs #6 Nebraska (11-1)
1989 - Champion: Miami
#1 Colorado (11-0) vs #4 Notre Dame (11-1)
#2 Miami (10-1) vs #7 Alabama (10-1)
#3 Michigan (10-1) vs #12 USC (8-2-1)
1990 - Champion: split
#1 Colorado (10-1-1) vs #5 Notre Dame (9-2)
#2 Georgia Tech (10-0-1) vs #19 Nebraska (9-2)
#3 Texas (10-1) vs #4 Miami (9-2)
1991 - Champion: split
#1 Miami (11-0) vs #11 Nebraska (9-1-1)
#2 Washington (11-0) vs #4 Michigan (10-1)
#3 Florida (10-1) vs #18 Notre Dame (9-3)
1992 - Year 1 of Bowl Coalition
#1 Miami (11-0) vs #2 Alabama (12-0) - This one fell into the Sugar Bowl's lap, as they had the SEC tie-in and Miami (Big East) was considered sort of an at-large because the Big East wasn't directly tied a bowl game.
1993
#1 Florida State (11-1) vs #2 Nebraska (11-0) - Orange Bowl still had the Big 8 tie-in, and FSU was an "at-large" (in the same way Miami had been the year before). The controversy here was that West Virginia was also unbeaten, but the combined AP/UPI rankings pushed them to 3rd in the "bowl coalition" poll.
1994
#1 Nebraska (12-0) vs #3 Miami (10-1)
#2 Penn State (11-0) vs #12 Oregon (9-3) - This is where the Rose Bowl's "tradition" prevented a 1 vs 2 matchup.
Ah, I forgot about the Bowl Coalition! Good callout. Okay, so 17 games over 9 years.
I'd throw a few of these out, mostly just due to kick off times and outcomes from earlier in the day:
- 1988 #2 Miami. ND won the Fiesta Bowl, finished undefeated and beat Miami head-to-head. Nothing Miami could do in that game would put them at #1.
- 1991 #3 Florida. #2 Washington already won the Rose Bowl to finish undefeated. The best Florida could hope for was #2 (if #1 Miami lost the Orange Bowl). Unlikely Florida would get a split with 1 loss.
What I do miss is multiple games going on simultaneously on New Years Day, like a one-day NCAA tournament but football.
A bowl game only matters to me if ISU is in it. I'm not sure I'll watch a single one this year and it's been that way for a long time for me. I'm not like taking some stand against them or make some case I'm tired of the SEC or anything. Just literally can't hold my attention.
Agree. There's really no point anymore. Have the playoff.... however many teams that are in it that given year.... and that's it. No need for any of the rest honestly. So many players just sit out nowadays. They are meaningless.
My point wasn't so much about in the sense of national campion as much as it was do they matter to each team involved.
With opt outs, coaching changes, and transfers the teams playing in the bowl games are much different than the teams that earned that bowl game.
They matter to 1)fans, 2) the players that choose to play in them and 3) recruits. Recruits know who won their bowl games.
All this is just sports radio banter to fill air time.
All this is just sports radio banter to fill air time.
KidSilverhair
Well-Known Member
Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl on New Years Eve; New Years Day with the Cotton, Sugar, Rose, and Orange bowls. Classic.
Adding the Outback and Fiesta to New Years Day was pretty good, too.
Spreading the “classic” bowls out over four days, or a week, just doesn’t seem right - because it isn’t.
Akron should be the permanent location of the Irrelevant Bowl.
Or alternate with Lincoln.
