For all of the obvious reasons, (realignment, $, tv, a real championship, $, tv) the College Football Bowl games and BCS need to be realigned. A playoff systems should emerge

We need to consider Division I Conference Champions:
ACC, Big East, SEC, Big 10, CUSA, Big XII, MWC, MAC, WAC, Pac 10, Sunbelt, Independents

And we should consider the active, continuous, long-lasting bowl games (using their real names, not corporate sponsorships):

Rose Bowl (1902) Big 10 vs. Pac 10
Orange Bowl (1935) Big 12 vs
Sugar Bowl (1935) SEC vs.
Fiesta Bowl (1971)
Cotton Bowl (1937) SWC vs.
Tangerine/Citrus Bowl (1947)
Gator Bowl (1946)
Liberty Bowl (1959)
Peach Bowl (1968)
Sun Bowl (1936)
Holiday Bowl (1978)

http://www.footballbowlassociation.com provides some interesting perspective

The Proposal
Each conference gets 1 champion to enter into the Playoff system. How it determines the champion (playoff, record, round-robin, etc.) is up to them. This maintains conference integrity and discourages the need for large conferences. (It may even encourage more conferences a la NCAA basketball, but that can be choked off).

The Inter-Conference Playoffs
There are 12 "conferences" including independents
There are 6 majors (ACC, Big 10, SEC, Big 12, Pac 10, CUSA) and 6 minors (Big East, MWC, Sunbelt, WAC, MAC, Independents)
(We can argue whether MWC is major or minor, and also CUSA, but for seeding, we need one or the other).

We want to seed

12 -> 8 -> 4 -> 2 -> 1 (National Championship Game)

The Six Majors also have championships, we can call these bowl games and have them in fixed locales, roughly within the conference geography

Gator Bowl: ACC
Peach Bowl: SEC
Liberty Bowl: Big 10 -- this is weak, but Motor-City is weaker (or no bowl if Big 10 doesn't want a championship)
Cotton Bowl: Big 12
Holiday Bowl: Pac 10 (or not if Pac 10 doesn't want a championship)
Sun Bowl: CUSA


The 6 minors need to generate 2 teams. The minors should not have an intra-conference playoff

Bowl X : WAC vs. Sunbelt
Bowl Y : MAC vs. Independent (by Poll Rating)

Tangerine Bowl: MWC vs. Bowl X (MAC/Independents) winner
Sun Bowl: Big East vs. Bowl Y (Sunbelt/WAC) winner

Quarter-Finals (Preserve History as Best as Possible) Dec 31/Jan 1
Rose Bowl - Big 10 vs. Pac 10
Orange Bowl - Big 12 vs Sun Bowl winner
Sugar Bowl - SEC vs. MWC
Fiesta Bowl - Tangerine Bowl vs. ACC

Semi-Finals (Jan 7 or so)
Bowl: Rose Bowl vs. Fiesta Bowl winners
Bowl: Sugar Bowl vs. Orange Bowl winners


Finals (MLK Monday)
Winners of Semi-Final Bowls

Semi-Finals and Finals Rotate across many venues, like Superbowl

The remaining Bowls are for wanna-bes and runner-ups, like the basketball post-season NIT.

No the ACC championship will be in on the southeastern tip of Cuba.

Are you proposing the Gitmo Bowl? Sponsored by the War on Afghanistan?

-- accbandito

Elevate MWC & demote CUSA to join BE & the other minors.

Accbandito, not sure a playoff will ever happen, however, there should be some re-alignment with the minor bowls.

I would like to see 8 of the best non BCS bowls form a tier two BCS type process and select the next best 16 teams in the BCS rankings after the current 8 BCS schools are selected (i.e football version of basketball NIT).

Current conference tie ins are causing the minor bowls to drop in attendance and TV ratings.

The line up of teams could be announced after the BCS selections process and would create the same excitement that goes with the NCAA basketball selection.

Currently, we know which conference team in ranking order is going to which bowl and the surprise element has been removed much less the option to stage a better matchup of bowl teams.

How many folks on this board would really like to have watched Miami of Ohio play in a higher profile bowl this year. Maybe Miami Ohio/Iowa in the Outback or Maryland/Miami Ohio in the Gator, Clemson/Miami Ohio in the Peach or Washington State/Miami Ohio in the Holiday bowl.

All of the above bowls were not very exciting due to the conference tie ins and could have been more interesting with a team that surprised most of the nation this year. This is not possible as long as we have the Big 10 number 2 playing the SEC number 2, etc because we assume the matchup will be better. Each year we fans get shafted by these tiresome same old conference matchups. This does not mean the number 2 team in the Big 10 or SEC does not deserve a good bowl, just not always having to be pre determined in a conference tie in scenario.

Accbandito, not sure a playoff will ever happen, however, there should be some re-alignment with the minor bowls.

I would like to see 8 of the best non BCS bowls form a tier two BCS type process and select the next best 16 teams in the BCS rankings after the current 8 BCS schools are selected (i.e football version of basketball NIT).

Current conference tie ins are causing the minor bowls to drop in attendance and TV ratings.

The line up of teams could be announced after the BCS selections process and would create the same excitement that goes with the NCAA basketball selection.

Currently, we know which conference team in ranking order is going to which bowl and the surprise element has been removed much less the option to stage a better matchup of bowl teams.

How many folks on this board would really like to have watched Miami of Ohio play in a higher profile bowl this year. Maybe Miami Ohio/Iowa in the Outback or Maryland/Miami Ohio in the Gator, Clemson/Miami Ohio in the Peach or Washington State/Miami Ohio in the Holiday bowl.

All of the above bowls were not very exciting due to the conference tie ins and could have been more interesting with a team that surprised most of the nation this year. This is not possible as long as we have the Big 10 number 2 playing the SEC number 2, etc because we assume the matchup will be better. Each year we fans get shafted by these tiresome same old conference matchups. This does not mean the number 2 team in the Big 10 or SEC does not deserve a good bowl, just not always having to be pre determined in a conference tie in scenario.

Will the chair please accept previously revised and extended remarks into the record without repeating them here?

That's regarding how bad an idea four weeks of neutral site playoffs is, your honor.

Put simply, many bowls yet to find the formula for the right kind of success. The Peach Bowl has sold out for several years in a row now, is almost always highly competitive and a decent TV draw. This despite the inconsistency of dates and times for kickoff. For them, the ACC/SEC rivalry is a gold mine.

The question then becomes what's the proper format for these other bowls? Or at least, waht mistakes can they avoid? IMO...

- Long distance travel for the weaker bowl teams seems a recipe for disaster. Don't see the ACC or BE teams bringing lots of fans with them to Seattle, SF, or Boise. (A shame, but a reality)

- Regional Rivalries should be fostered out west. The Pac 10 and Big 12 should be involved in more steady rivalry bowls with the MWC and WAC. I would like to see the MWC champ vs. the Big 10 #2 in the Holiday Bowl.

- CUSA should then look to MAC and BE to build their own SEC/Big 10-style rivalries. I don't see the Big 10 or SEC dropping anything greater than their 5th selection for a bowl game with these conferences, but perhaps if the MAC sells some seats for more games down south they can begin to move up the ladder.

- Opt-out of affiliations for better match-ups. TCU/BSU got everyone's attention, and kudos to BSU for making it happen.

- There needs to be more selling to the locals. Tickets should be priced to sell, even if just to the locals. That revenue can be made up in concessions, plus the sense of an active crowd draws future interest. More importantly, for all these schools with large enrollments but seemingly less travel support, where do their alumni live? A lot of the "travel" to bowl games comes from alumni already living near the bowl site. Conferences should be aware of this info and help market the games better.

- There should also be more to the bowl name and identity than a corporate sponsor. Fans and players grow excited about the travel because they're going somewhere novel, seeing and doing new things, being a part of something special. If part of the bowl's marketing and promotions can't handle selling the locale, the way bowls all began, then it sends a message of "show up, play and leave." It sounds superficial, but this could help fans associate the total vacation package that should come with a bowl. Quick: What fun pre-game activities did the players do before the Insight.com bowl? The Continentel Tire Bowl? There may be more to this than just the name (obviously), but surely there are more places with fun stuff to do than just Florida and California, and latley the bowls aren't convincing me of this.

(This last note may have been influenced by my take on GT's trip to the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise. The players and fans said they had a great time, but had no idea what to expect until they got there, and as such hadn't planned on longer stays.)

Hope you can handle my little tsunami of indulgence here.




Anyone will travel to New Orleans, Disneyland, and Florida, though it's harder for Pac-10 teams to get to Tampa. Part of Boise's problem is, well, Boise. A few years ago, Utah played on the blue, and they didn't bring any more people to that game than Montana State did (we're talking regular season here, but it's a simple freaking 5-hour freeway drive). Put it this way- everyone will say that Boise and El Paso and Shreveport are really nice and friendly (if they want to go to more bowl games), and some players will genuinely enjoy the experience of actually seeing snow when they aren't used to it, but it isn't quite the travel draw that Bourbon Street is. Heck, it ain't Beale. It ain't 8-Mile Drive. Ya know, at least Fresno is only 4 hours from So Cal.




Of course you would. Meanwhile, all the Pac-10 fans I know are furious because Pac-10 #2 plays Big 12 # THREE in the Holiday, Pac-10 #3 plays Big 10 # FIVE in the Sun... you get the picture. Pac-10 fans want higher profile games, and the MWC and WAC do NOT fit that bill.




In my wretched opinion, Boise State would not have sold out for Georgia Tech (I actually think they would have tried to buy off the ACC and invite Air Force if Boise State ended up staying). Boise State fans were aching to go out of town last year. There lies the ugly conundrum of all this- the Humanitarian would kill to have a Pac-10 affiliation, and the Pac-10 fans would kill Tom Hanson if they ever entered into it.




Again, I'm merely looking at Boise, plus a few experiences I've had in the past, but these bowls end up giving FREE tickets to the locals (precisely how I watched Saturday's game, BTW). If you sell cheaper tickets in this electronic age, the travelers will figure out how to get a hold of them. More to my point, you're asking people to spend 6 hours of time (including traffic tieups, optimistically calculated) and several bucks on two teams they probably don't care about. My surprising answer to this is that college football isn't THAT popular, which is also why I believe a 4-week all-neutral-site playoff tournament will also fail.




For the Hum Bowl, the snowmobile ride in the hills outside Idaho City is a BIG hit with the players, though I heard the Georgia Tech players (or, more specifically, the coaches) wussed out on that (refused to go) this year.

Most of these minor bowls have figured out that it costs too much money to get the fun stuff going. The main reason half these minor bowls exist is because ESPN is bankrolling them (and bankrolling only what they want to fund), because attendance doesn't often justify the existence of many to most of these bowls. Go figure. One thing, though... it takes many years to really figure this out. If the Continental Tire can last a few years, they might get some sort of festival organized around the thing, but even Charlotte is barely competing against all the Florida cities at this time of year... guess who wins those battles.

Gunnerfan, agreed on MWC champion versis Pac 10 number 2 in Holiday Bowl would be a good option for a non BCS bowl.

The ACC/SEC has to be careful to not schedule so many bowl tie ins due to the many regular season games between ACC and SEC teams.

The ACC and BE have the same issues that resulted in an unwanted Maryland/WVU rematch bowl game.

The SEC and Big 10 both have several bowl alignments because both conference do not play very many regular season games.

This leads into another issues. Why do the Big 10 and SEC not play many regular season games? Maybe the need for more out of conference body bag games.

If the SEC/ACC agree to Gator, Peach, Tangerine tie ins for example, the odds to produce a rematch of GA/Ga Tech, FSU/Florida, Florida/Miami, Clemson/South Carolina increase.

Like the BCS, the minor bowls are all about revenue. Sooner or later the fans who indirectly provide the funding by watching the games by providing an outlet for the marketing functions are going to get tired of the current bowl alignments and will stop watching.

Do you by chance have any comparison of TV ratings for bowls in the last few years. It has been reported that attendance overall is down for bowls and this is probably contributed to your comments on travel for teams from one part of the country to another.

Logically it does not make sense for an ACC or BE team to travel out west for a minor bowl, however, the Insight.Com likes the BE. This bowl uses Pac 10 teams and fans to fill the downtown stadium and TV marketing props for the large eastern markets.

One other point, I would like to see the SEC at least one Pac 10 and BE teamin bowls.

All six BCS conferences should play at least one minor bowl matchup.

The southern teams have another advantage over the nothern teams with the most bowls located in warm climates. The Big 10 is an exception as thousands of Big 10 fans want to escape the weather during the holidays.

I dont understand why there are not more bowls added in the cold climates such as New York City, Chicago, Minneapolis (Dome), Indianapolis (Dome), Syracuse (Dome), Pittsburgh, Boston, Philly, etc. All of these cities have nice cultural activites especially New York and Chicago during the holiday season. Guess everyone wants to go south or west for the winter.

Bowl attendance seemed to be pretty good this year. But the fixed alignments is starting to cause some problems. The Big 12 is having to deal with the same teams going to the same bowls too often. On one Texas board, after the Fiesta, fans said they were most likely to go to the Alamo Bowl, which is the #4 bowl. They weren't too interested in the Holiday Bowl (long distance-3rd time in 4 years) or the Cotton Bowl (Fair Park is not a great place to be on January 1 and it would have been 3 times in 5 years and its usually not a premier opponent). The Tangerine Bowl has drawn miserably in its two years with the Big 12 (lower tier bowl-long distance). The Cotton has had teams indicate they weren't that interested. The Alamo has sometimes had problems because teams dropped from a higher tier bowl and were dissappointed (with OU, UT, UNL, KSU, CU there is often not a lot of space from #2 to #5).

I don't know what the solution is. The Big 10 and SEC sure don't want to rotate out of the Citrus and Outback. Maybe some bowls will just have to go out of business and others take their place.

Pounder, your tsunami was quite welcome and enjoyable. Reportedly the Boise trip was the first time half of the Tech players had seen snow! I'm surprised I'd fail to mention the access issue, as such matters relate to my work! Rats.

I also can see the popint of the Pac 10 wanting more equal match-ups. Just as with the ACC, I'm sure they were told the assignments are in relation to the uneven conference size, which to some degree is fair. Perhaps the future reshufflings will amend some of that. I think more ACC fans would travel west for a Pac 10 match-up in LA (easy access, etc) if another bowl game were played there. If ever the NFl returns (new stadium in Carson?) perhaps this could be a possibility? As for the Big 12's sub-par interest in San Diego, I'm sure some of it has to do with reputation of the facility.

Similar situation, as Bullett alluded to, with the Cotton Bowl. Perhaps if the Cowboys ever get a new stadium it might replace the college duties currently assigned to the Cotton Bowl?

Lash, you comment about the Insight.com Bowl ring true. Id' failed to make the eastern market connection. Haven't checked for attendance or travel numbers yet, merely recalling GT's (killing me) poor travel to Seattle (10k) and Silicon Valley (3-5k). Personally, I love Seattle and with the new Seahawks Stadium think an Emerald City Bowl would be great.

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I'm lost in thought right now about a possible connection between the "pay-the-players" issue and this inability for some bowls to provide extra amenities for the players. Obviously the ability of the school/ conference/ city to put on a week long vacation for nearly 200 players and coaches is a lot. Perhaps the BCS or future $$ issues could fund more bowls, drum up more interest among the teams and their supporters to travel if there's extra discounting made available. Just thinking...

Also, the idea of spreading the games out so as to minimize conflicts with other games is not bad, but perhaps the volume of games suggests a need for another "New Years Day" experience, such as 5 games on Dec 31? There's always been this aura around playing in a New Years Day bowl, so why not add some ethereal luster to other bowls by augmenting the status of playing on New Years Eve? Peach, Holiday, Alamo, Liberty... Half of America is off work, anyway, people might be more willing to travel and spend for a holiday experience. Then Dec 31 and Jan 1 can feel like the first two days of the NCAA tourney. Without adding much cost.

Okay, back to work.

Some notes:

Another bowl in Seattle is on the drawing board:

http://themwc.ocsn.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/121803aad.html

Plus, the Cotton Bowl is of course looking to get back into the act:

http://soonerfans.firstdownsports.com/forums/showthread.php?p=105317#post105317

Another Cal Bowl is being discussed in Fresno. It opperated for years hosting the MAC and Big West Cahmpions, but was disbanded when the Dogs jumped to the WAC. From what I have heard all the pieces and foundation are still in place. It would take very little time to bring it back online again.

The Bowl avg. 30k fans when the dogs played (Stadium had not been expanded at this time) and 24k when Fresno did not play. These are numbers from someone else, but if I remeber correctly they are right, or at least very close.

Yet another bowl is being planned for Miami and run by the same folks who stage the BCS Orange bowl. This would be similiar to the Fiesta officials who run both the Insight.Com Bowl and BCS Fiesta Bowls.

Not sure if any conference tie ins have been identified for the proposed new Miami bowl. The game is planned to be played before Christmas.

Apparently there will not be a shortage of bowls games for any conference in the future.