things kevin hates

It’s New Year’s Day and I’m sitting in front of the TV watching college football. It’s something I haven’t done in a while, partly because I’ve been too busy, but mostly because we’ve gotten to the point where the number of bowl games is ridiculous, and the matchups feature mediocre teams you couldn’t possibly care about.

Now, I understand the capitalist desire for more bowl games. ESPN will televise just about anything, fans will travel, perhaps a few locals snap up extra tickets, and teams love getting an extra month of practice. And if I’ve got nothing else to do, why not watch some football? Now, some of the games have been pretty good (the SportsCenter highlights of Idaho (7-5) vs. Bowling Green (6-6) in the Humanitarian Bowl looked fantastic). But who the fuck cares about Idaho or Bowling Green? Until a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t even realize what state Bowling Green was in.* Do either of these schools have fans? Idaho isn’t even the number one team in its tiny state. And Bowling Green? It’s undoubtedly miles behind OSU and Cincinnati, duking it out with instate MAC rivals Kent State, Toledo, Ohio, Akron, and Miami for second tier Buckeye State bragging rights. And why the hell are .500 mid-major teams making bowls? It’s bad enough when power conference .500 teams get to bowls, but Bowling Green? What the fuck?

Or consider a matchup such as the opening bowl game of the season, Fresno State (8-4) vs. Wyoming (6-6). Now, Fresno State was the hot mid-major school of the West before they were usurped by Boise State, but while they’ve had some good games against power conference teams, they haven’t won even a share of the WAC title since 1999. And Wyoming—well, to be honest, I wasn’t even sure they were in I-A. And I’d have guessed they were in the WAC, but they’re in the Mountain West.

Now, I shouldn’t just bash the minor conference teams. Do I care about 6-6 Minnesota playing 6-6 Iowa State in the Insight Bowl in Tempe, Arizona?*** Nowadays just about everyone wins 6 games, with I-A schools allowed to play I-AA teams every year and count that nearly-automatic win toward the six-win total. Scheduling is a total joke for the BCS conference teams: the big-name schools might try to schedule a marquee out of conference matchup to improve their BCS ranking, but almost everyone schedules at least one I-AA team and one or two mid-majors.****

Also, in the past few years the bowl schedule has gotten horribly out of whack. It used to build to a climax with the major bowls on New Year’s Day, but with the National Championship game being played a week later and the BCS bowls sprinkled across several days, other bowls started to play in January and we get things like the GMAC Bowl with Central Michigan and Troy on January 6, a day before the national championship.

Here’s what I want: a cap on the number of bowl games. There are 34 bowl games, which means 68 bowl teams, out of a total 120 teams in I-A. More than half of the teams go to bowls? By necessity, mediocre teams are being rewarded. Scale it back to about 20 games. Let’s scrap every bowl founded since 2000. No metro area needs more than one bowl, so let’s scrap stuff like the New Orleans Bowl, the Armed Forces Bowl, and the St. Petersburg Bowl. Then, let’s quit counting I-AA wins toward the total needed, and let’s raise that total to 7, with no exceptions for conferences who try to fill their bowl tie-ins. I realize the NCAA will never do anything sensible, but it’s nice to hope, isn’t it?

* It’s in Bowling Green, Ohio (which I’m pretty sure I’ve driven though, by the way). I had assumed it was in Bowling Green, Kentucky, which is a city twice the size of its counterpart to the north, but it’s not. Bowling Green, KY is home to Western Kentucky University, who played their first full season of Division I-A‡ football this year, going winless. No doubt they’ll be in some meaningless bowl within three years.

** They are, however, one of only three I-A teams to play home games indoors. The others? Look it up yourself, you lazy shit.

*** Useless trivia: the Insight Bowl, formerly the Insight.com bowl, and before that the Copper Bowl, was previously played in Tucson and Phoenix. Just pick a city and stick with it, okay?

**** Then a team like Boise State gets screwed because no one wants to play them. At the end of the year, their schedule looks weak because it’s almost impossible to get big-name schools to play them. The way these teams can get screwed while going undefeated is probably the single biggest factor that’s swung be from defending the BCS to being in favor of some sort of playoff system.

‡ I refuse to call it FBS. And yes, this is a footnote to a footnote.