The quest to fill all 35 bowl games outside the playoff expanded to teams with losing records this year, but the searching didn’t get much easier. At least 10 teams reportedly declined invitations, raising questions about the future of the postseason games that are one of college football’s most cherished traditions whose role has dramatically changed.
Notre Dame, Iowa State and Kansas State were the first to decide against bowl trips, with the two Big 12 teams drawing $500,000 fines for throwing a wrench into the league’s commitment to certain games. After Notre Dame was left out of the College Football Playoff bracket, the Fighting Irish rejected an appearance in the Pop-Tarts Bowl.
In the second year of the 12-team playoff, some bowls — even established ones with long histories — are being reduced to optional status. The chance to hold more practices, get away to a warmer locale, give fans the chance to book a holiday trip with a little more football alongside fellow alumni doesn’t seem to hold the same appeal for every program.
Bowl organizers say there is no need to panic and note the sprawling schedule of bowls — they begin Saturday, within an hour of the Army-Navy game that signals the end of the regular season — remains valuable.
“College football needs bowl games as much as it needs the CFP,” the executive director of Coca-Cola Bowl Season, Nick Carparelli, told The Associated Press. “Bowl season is just as important, and to a greater number of institutions and student-athletes. College football needs postseason opportunities that serve the 130-plus FBS institutions who are all at different points in their development and evolution as football programs.”
Bowl value
Bowls were considered pretigious for many years in part because there were so few of them, with the Rose Bowl the only major game in the early 1930s. But the appeal grew. Sunny bowl locations in the early days of winter touted themselves to tourists and all-star-like games gave way to showdowns between top programs. By 1980, there were more than a dozen bowl games and there were 35 by 2010, with sponsors getting their names on them to help foot the bill. TV deals meant wall-to-wall bowl games for three weeks.
Recent changes in college athletics have lessened the value for some. Quarterback Beau Pribula drew outsized attention a year ago when he left playoff-bound Penn State for the transfer portal. This year, Ole Miss balked at letting coach Lane Kiffin stay for the the CFP after he took the job at LSU.
Players deciding they don’t want to do a bowl game doesn’t surprise Ramogi Huma, the executive director of the National College Players Association.
“I don’t think you can hold players to a standard where they should absolutely be playing every bowl game offered when you have examples of schools and coaches not doing that,” Huma said this week.
Huma argued the lack of enthusiasm toward bowl games goes hand-in-hand with a 12-team playoff. With room in the playoff for eight additional teams, the mission becomes CFP-or-bust for top programs.
“The emergence of a wider and larger College Football Playoff is another factor when you look at it,” Huma said. “If the gold standard for these teams is now making an expanded playoff and everything else falls short, that may be a deterrent for a team like Notre Dame. … They might not want to play in another bowl, and that alone could decrease, kind of water down, the prominence of the bowls that are outside the playoff.”
The classics, like the Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl and Peach Bowl, still hold significant meaning as College Football Playoff games. But in a case like the Birmingham Bowl, it took a handful of rejections before finding an opponent for Georgia Southern.
Carparelli doesn’t think it’s time to sound an alarm.
“There are 82 bowl-eligible teams this year,” he said. “Twelve were selected to participate in the playoff, and the other 70 were invited to participate in a bowl game. We shouldn’t take a position on a system based on three of those 70 deciding it was not in their best interest to participate.”
He says interest in bowl games is at an all-time high. Last year, the 35 non-CFP bowl games averaged 2.7 million television viewers, marking a 14% year-over-year increase and the largest audience in five years – and that was in the first year of the 12-team playoff.
The vice president of ESPN Events, Clint Overby, echoed that optimism.
“Locally, there continues to be no shortage of communities who want to host games, sponsorships remain solid, viewership in the sport remains at an all-time high with last year’s bowl season being an increase over previous years,” Overby said. “There is no doubt the sport is in transition, but it would be shortsighted to judge this year’s non-CFP postseason through the emotional lens of what transpired this past Sunday.”
He acknowledged that stability doesn’t mean standing still.
“The sport continues to evolve as a result of the CFP,” he said. “It would be hard to suggest that the bowl system should remain static. I’m of the belief that the bowl system should be proactive and work with its league partners to meet them where the sport is going to ensure the long-term viability of the bowl system as a part of the college football postseason.”
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