It's a yearly tradition. College football fans are not happy with the bowls. Whether they find them meaningless, full of bad match ups, or not having a true playoff people are starting to (if not already) really hate them.
I am one of the minority who actually like the bowls. They fun and different. Their a reward for the players and the coaches. Plus it gives us a chance to watch a lot of college football and see some match up that we will never get in the regular season.
However we do have some hope as the four team playoff will be coming in a few years. This does not mean that Bowls are going away. But we do need to fix some of the things that would make them a lot better. Listed below are a few ideas that I feel would really spice up Bowl season and get back a lot the interest we once had.
1. Eligible Teams
Right now if you win six games you are eligible to make a bowl. And with the amount of Bowls and conference tie ins, your assured that you make one. That means we get to see some "great" match ups between two 6-6 teams. That's not very exciting if you ask me. Bowl Games are suppose to be a reward for a good season. Going .500 isn't a good season. What they should do is increase the wins to be eligible to seven. That's at least having a winning record. This will force some teams not to be eligible and we'd have some better match ups.
2. Eliminating Bowls
This idea is a little harder for me since I love watching football, but they need to cut back on the amount of bowl games. Because of the previous idea (moving the eligibility from 6 to 7 wins) there will be a need to cut games because there won't be enough eligible teams to fill up all the bowls. Right now we have 35 Bowls, that just way too many. If you move it up to seven wins to get it there would only be enough teams qualified for 32 bowls. Personally I think we could shrink it down even more. Maybe down to 25-28 bowls. That could be easy by getting rid of bowls that are played in the same stadium or the same town. Here would be the 10 Bowls I'd eliminate:
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
Who wants to travel to Boise Idaho in the middle of December to play a bowl? Blue field not withstanding.
Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl
Tropicana Field is a horrible place for Football and Florida is overrun with Bowl Games anyways.
Little Caesars Bowl
Same as the Potato Bowl, but substitute Boise for Detroit.
Russell Athletic Bowl
They already play the Capital One Bowl at the Citrus Bowl, why do we need another game there?
New Era Pinstripe Bowl
This is tough because New York would be a fun place to go, but it's in a baseball stadium and in a cold weather environment.
Heart of Dallas Bowl
Similar to the Russell Athletic Bowl, they already play the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Why another game? At least this one is played in the Cotton Bowl.
BBVA Compass Bowl
When I think of going to a bowl game location, I"m not hoping to go to Birmingham Alabama.
3. No Repeat Visits
Game attendance is down. Part of that is the economy and travel costs. But another part is some teams are going to the same site two years (or more) in a row. Let's look at Nebraska for a second. They are known for having some of the most well traveled fans. However their game in the Capital One Bowl this past year wasn't as highly attended as previous bowls. A big reason for that is the Huskers were just at the Capital One Bowl the year before. From now on they should have a rule about not being able to go to the same bowl two years in a row. Nebraska could have easily been slotted to the Outback Bowl instead.
4. Return New Years Day MagicOne of the best things about the old bowl format was that New Years Day was when all the big time bowl games were (BCS Bowls now). I understand that they don't want two major bowl games going on at the same time, so they string them out over the week. But that just drags it out so long. They should have January 1st be the last day of the bowl season. There is no problem with having three big bowls on that final day. Or heck have them on New Year's Eve or the day before. Not January 7th.
5. Pay the Winner
Every year there are plenty of teams that are not motivated to play in the bowl games. They'd don't want to be there and are more interested in the off the field stuff. What is worse is we've grown to almost accept it. That's not right. What we need to do is reward the winning team. Instead of paying both teams (money goes to the conference) the winning team should get the lions share of the money while the loser still gets some, just not as much. That might motivate the coaches to be more focused. The players always get some form of a grab bag full of high dollar stuff. What we should do is only give the winning team the perks. That might motivate the players to care more.
Bonus
A bonus one here. With the four team playoff coming down the road, please don't use any of the current Bowls as semi-finals. The Championship is OK. But that will kill the those bowls. Fans won't want to travel to both games and then the stadium will be filled with corporate sponsors or local fans which won't lead to a good crowd. Instead have those games at home sites where they will be much better for the game.
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