It seems Temple has been passed over for a bowl despite going 8-4. Too many 6-6 teams got in, and Temple is much more deserving than them. This came after three conferences were not able to fill all their bowl slots.

I think 6-6 teams should now only be allowed in bowls if all of their wins come over FBS opponents. East Carolina, BYU, and Washington were the only 6-6 teams to record all their wins over FBS opponents.

If not that, 6-6 teams with at least one win over an FCS should only be considered after all 7 or more-win teams and all 6-6 teams that got all their wins over FBS opponents are selected.

Of course, the MAC was hurt by the loss of the International Bowl, as well as the denial of two other bowl applications (in Orlando and Los Angeles).

The problem is in the conference associations with given bowls. Since that exists, it will always place a 6-6 school ahead of even a 9-3 school from a conference not aligned with said bowl.

I understand the reason the bowls exist, despite all the fans wanting a playoff. But there are just so many flaws.

Tradition argument:
One of the arguments made in favor of the bowls was the tradition. And the Rose Bowl hung in there for a long time, outside of the bCS. But even they caved, but at least kept the agreement in place so that every year, there would be a Big Ten vs Pac-10 school when possible. Well, that is gone now too as at-large qualifier TCU is in rather than Stanford.

But in doing this, it created less desirable matchups. Instead of Stanford vs wisconsin and Oklahoma vs TCU...or even Uconn vs VA Tech...matchups people wanted to see...you have Wisconsin vs TCU and Oklahoma vs Uconn and VA Tech vs Stanford. No doubt that there are multiple non-BCS games that are more appealing to college football fans.


Quality at the top:
It shouldn't matter what conferences the schools are in...the BCS should be the best of the best. Michigan St. really deserves in over a number of schools. It's happened before in other conferences. Meanwhile VA Tech and even UConn got in.

If you want people to buy into the bowl system, and you've thrown away all the tradition, then you might as well limit the 10 spots to the top 10 schools. There is no world in which Uconn should be in a BCS bowl over any of the 31 schools ranked above them. At least VA Tech is close to the Top 10...haven't looked roday but what are they 12 or 13?


Quality at the bottom:
Again, if you have BCS rankings decide the top 2...and these same BCS rankings should be used to decide the 10 total BCS teams...why not apply that to all bowls.

If you want us to give any credence to the BCS rankings, then use them for more than #1 and #2. You can set soft bowl alignments with conferences assuming they have eligible schools in the ball-park. But it should be a matter of the Top 70 BCS ranked schools are your total pool. If Temple is #70, they are in. If they are #71, they are out. That simple.

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You ave to remember there might be backup obligations. The Sun belt got 3 teams in bowls this year 2 for their guaranteed spots and 1 for their contracted backup spots. If the Sunbelt didn't have those secondary bowl spots i doubt they would have 3 teams in bowls.

You kind of have to look at the MAC and wonder why they didn't do what the Sun Belt did. While being a backup conference for 3 bowls doesn't guarantee you another bowl in years like this you can sneek another team in.

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Problem is, The number of teams in the BCS standings fluctuates every year because the BCS can only rank teams receiving votes in the polls. Teams not receiving votes in either poll would not be ranked.

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The reasons for why this happened are above, however I'm sure you knew all of that already.

I totally agree with what you're saying. It's completely ridiculous for 6-6 teams with a win over an FCS school to get into a bowl over an 8-4 Temple team that beat UConn. Heck just look at the Big 10. A lot of those teams have 3 wins over MAC/SB teams and/or 1 over an FCS team. How hard is that to get to 6 wins? SEC has a lot of Sun Belt cupcake games too. Perfect example, Indiana, 1-7 in conference play, was 1 win away from being bowl eligible (and you know they would have gotten in). Who'd they beat? Towson, WKU, Akron, and Ark St. If they had just beaten lowly Minnesota they would have been bowling. How come Big 10 schools go bowling when Temple beat the same teams?

How we go about fixing this problem is much more difficult. Doing what the SB does and being the back up conference is a smart thing to do. However, there should be a guarantee for 8 win teams to get in a bowl game. 7 wins maybe not because then your conference comes into play (7 win MAC over 6 win Big 10 for example).

There needs to be a rule where all teams with 8 or more wins need to be placed before 6 win teams could accept bowl invites. I would suggest they have some sort of contract where they fill a conference's last bowl spot. Should the last team eligible from said conference be 6-6 they would then lose their spot to a MAC, SB, or even WAC school with 8 wins.

And for the record, I agree that only games against FBS schools should count in terms of bowl eligibility, however, I don't think all the bowl games would be filled if that happened.

The question would be money then. Does the bowl have a chance to make money on it or will the school?
A question is why didn't the MAC do what the SB did with secondary contracts. While i agree a 8-4 team shouldn't have been left out. The schools, bowls or Conferences did nothing wrong. I don't mind FCS games as they help the FCS with money. Maybe a buyout clause would be better to add to the games. Each bowl could buy out a team to not play there and then the bowl is allowed to pick up that better school.(the bought out team can still go play in another bowl if selected)

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Exactly. It's the bowl sponsors that make the decisions. There isn't much money to be made by the schools in the lesser bowls since they have to pay to get their team and staff to the locations. I mean, the New Orleans bowl has a $300,000 payout. If a school like Idaho had to travel there, you think the payout would cover travel costs?

As for who is in and who isn't, it would all depend on who the 6-6 school is. Forget the business aspects like say a 6-6 Texas type team being chosen since they travel well = good business. But a 6-6 Texas team playing in the Big 12 can be argued to have done more than Temple, who is in the MAC. Doesn't help as much when the "big win" by Temple was over a school that was what, #35 in the BCS rankings? Or course, that same UConn team shouldn't have been in the BCS is we're talking about "deserving".

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So you are saying that say Illinois, who finished 6-6, with one win over a MAC school (NIU) and a FCS school (those easy wins you are criticizing) should be behind Temple, who has 6 wins over those same "cupcake" MAC and FCS schools?

Not I my friend. I think complaining about the lower bowls just adds to the problem. Those bowls exist just to shut up the lower schools, so they can say "we got in a bowl". When in reality, many of the schools aren't even making money int he process...they are just getting to say "we got in a bowl". You want a bowl system over playoffs? Fine. But there should be 15 bowls, tops, so the top 30 schools get in. But guess what? We had a BCS school that wasn't even top 30 (UConn).

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