College Football Weekly Rant - Bowl Special

COLLEGE FOOTBALL WEEKLY RANT

BOWL DRAFT

This is becoming an annual Rant come Bowl Season as I continue to feed ESPN ideas on how to #MakeBowlSeasonGreatAgain.  My format remains the similar to years passed, which you can find HERE from last year when we revisited this idea.  Basically, because Bowl Season has become maybe 4 or 5 decent games outside the CFB Playoff and a bunch of garbage due to the conference affiliations with the bowls, we have a draft to pick the games.  I mean, who doesn’t love a draft???

The draft order goes by the bowl payouts from the previous bowl season.  These would be sealed bids, and the dollar figures would not be announced the bowls are announced.  This would make it, so no bowls could get an advantage over others.  It would also allow a bowl to make a play for a big game with better opponents if they were willing to pay a premium.  Here is the Draft Order based on the 2016 Bowl Season payouts: (Note: All New Year’s 6 Bowls are protected in the Top 6 spots, but conference affiliation is no longer a part of the bowl selection process)

CFB Playoff Sites:
1. Rose Bowl
2. Sugar Bowl

Remaining New Year’s 6 Bowls:
3. Peach Bowl
4. Orange Bowl
5. Fiesta Bowl
6. Cotton Bowl

All Other Bowls:
7. Citrus Bowl ($8,500,000)
8. Alamo Bowl ($7,775,000)
9. Outback Bowl ($6,308,560)
10. Texas Bowl ($6,200,000)
11. Holiday Bowl ($5,930,000)
12. Camping World Bowl ($5,800,000)
13. Music City Bowl ($5,787,500)
14. Liberty Bowl ($4,800,000)
15. Belk Bowl ($4,623,123)
16. Pinstripe Bowl ($4,200,000)
17. Foster Farms Bowl ($3,600,000)
18. Sun Bowl ($3,447,568)
19. TaxSlayer Bowl ($3,116,429)
20. Las Vegas ($2,800,000)
21. Military Bowl ($2,066,990)
22. Birmingham Bowl ($2,050,000)
23. Quick Lane Bowl ($1,800,000)
24. Cactus Bowl ($1,750,000)
25. Heart of Dallas ($1,667,000)
26. Armed Forces Bowl ($1,557,500)
27. Dollar General Bowl ($1,500,000)
28. Independence Bowl ($1,486,200)
29. Hawaii Bowl ($1,200,000)
30. Idaho Potato Bowl ($1,050,000)
31. New Mexico ($1,050,000)
32. Gasparilla Bowl ($1,000,000)
33. New Orleans Bowl ($925,000)
34. Boca Raton Bowl ($850,000)
35. Cure Bowl ($802,000)
36. Arizona Bowl ($556,840)
37. Camellia Bowl ($500,000)
38. Bahamas Bowl ($450,000)
39. Frisco Bowl ($200,000)

THE DRAFT:

The Draft would be simple, there is no conference affiliation, no automatic bids and no side table negotiations, just each bowl picking their teams, with a just a few rules.

*Bowls will select in order with a pool of 10 teams to choose from.  For instance, the Peach Bowl would have the 1^st choice after the CFB Playoff Committee selects their 4 playoff teams.  The Peach Bowl would then have the next 10 teams in the rankings available to pick from (Ideally the Committee would rank all bowl eligible teams, not just a Top 25.  For this exercise I am using the Massey Ratings Index, which does rank all 130 FBC teams.)  With each bowl selections, two more teams come available for the next bowl to choose from.

*No team can drop more than six bowl games.  Meaning that once you show up in the selection pool, if you are not picked by the 1^st five bowls you were made available to, you are automatically assigned to the next bowl.

There is no chance that ESPN couldn’t and wouldn’t sell the hell out of this.  Can you imagine a 4-hour show unveiling the 4 Playoff teams, plus a live draft for the remaining bowls?  They could have a greenroom with 72 different coaches/AD’s from all the bowl eligible schools and a “War Room” like the NFL Draft of all the bowl committees.  Every 5 minutes a new bowl representative comes on stage to make their pick followed by team reps coming out on stage for a quick photo op.  Then back to the set and that bowl gets the attention of Rece Davis, Desmond Howard, David Pollack and Kirk Herbstreit for the next 5 minutes while waiting on the next selection.  Let’s not forget about the rankings continuously being unveiled with two more eligible teams for the next bowl to select from.  It would be College Football’s version of the Royal Rumble as everyone waits to see who is next!  Think about it, every bowl gets their individual time in the national spotlight, the coaches get some face time and the network gets millions of eyeballs, EVERYBODY WINS!

Another benefit from this format is avoid the repetition we see every bowl season with the same schools going back to the same bowls due to conference affiliations.  Bowl attendance has been way down recently, and you’d have to imagine it has to do with fans not wanting to go back to the same location every few years.  The current format has teams limited to only a few locations based on their conference tie-ins, this format would make any bowl a possibility for any team and give the bowl the decision to not pick the same teams they have had in recent years.

So, without further ado…

THE 2017 SELECTIONS: (My Mock Fake Bowl Draft)

PEACH BOWL – #5 Ohio State vs #9 Notre Dame
ORANGE BOWL - # 7 Penn State vs #8 Auburn
FIESTA BOWL - #6 Wisconsin vs #14 USC
COTTON BOWL - #19 Michigan vs #13 Oklahoma State
CITRUS BOWL - #10 UCF vs #12 Miami
ALAMO BOWL - #11 TCU (Mandatory Pick) vs #22 LSU
OUTBACK BOWL - #15 Virginia Tech (Mandatory Pick) vs #16 Michigan State (Mandatory Pick)
TEXAS BOWL - #17 Northwestern (Mandatory Pick) vs #18 Washington (Mandatory Pick)
HOLIDAY BOWL - #20 NC State (Mandatory Pick) vs #26 Stanford
CAMPING WORLD BOWL - #21 Louisville (Mandatory Pick) vs #23 Iowa (Mandatory Pick To Avoid Rematch)
MUSIC CITY BOWL - #24 Iowa State (Mandatory Pick) vs #29 Florida State
LIBERTY BOWL - #25 Boston College (Mandatory Pick) vs #30 Texas
BELK BOWL - #27 Wake Forest (Mandatory Pick) vs #28 Mississippi State (Mandatory Pick)
PINSTRIPE BOWL - #32 West Virginia  vs #36 Purdue
FOSTER FARMS BOWL - #31 Washington State (Mandatory Pick) vs #37 Texas Tech
SUN BOWL - #33 Kansas State (Mandatory Pick ) vs #34 Memphis (Mandatory Pick)
TAXSLAYER BOWL - #35 South Carolina (Mandatory Pick) vs #40 South Florida
LAS VEGAS BOWL - #38 Toledo (Mandatory Pick) vs #43 Texas A&M
MILITARY BOWL - #39 Boise State (Mandatory Pick) vs #48 Virginia
BIRMINGHAM BOWL - #41 Duke (Mandatory Pick) vs #42 San Diego State (Mandatory Pick)
QUICK LANE BOWL - #44 Missouri (Mandatory Pick) vs #46 Oregon
CACTUS BOWL - #45 Arizona State (Mandatory Pick) vs #51 Kentucky
HEART OF DALLAS BOWL - #47 Florida Atlantic (Mandatory Pick) vs #49 Houston
ARMED FORCES BOWL - #50 UCLA (Mandatory Pick) vs #54 Army
DOLLAR GENERAL BOWL - #52 Utah (Mandatory Pick) vs #56 Troy
INDEPENDENCE BOWL - #53 Arizona (Mandatory Pick) vs #59 SMU
HAWAII BOWL - #55 Fresno State (Mandatory Pick) vs #58 Navy
IDAHO POTATO BOWL - #57 N. Illinois (Mandatory Pick) vs #66 Colorado State
NEW MEXICO BOWL - #59 Central Michigan (Mandatory Pick) vs #70 Utah State
GASPARILLA BOWL - #61 Ohio (Mandatory Pick) vs #62 Temple (Mandatory Pick)
NEW ORLEANS BOWL - #63 North Texas (Mandatory Pick) vs #64 W. Michigan (Mandatory Pick)
BOCA RATON BOWL - #65 Appalachian State (Mandatory Pick) vs #67 Akron (Mandatory Pick To Avoid Conference Opponent)
CURE BOWL - #68 Buffalo (Mandatory Pick) vs #73 Florida International
ARIZONA BOWL – #69 Wyoming (Mandatory Pick) vs #78 UT-San Antonio
CAMELLIA BOWL - #71 Marshall (Mandatory Pick) vs #72 Arkansas State (Mandatory Pick)
BAHAMAS BOWL - #74 Southern Miss. (Mandatory Pick) vs #80 New Mexico State
FRISCO BOWL - #75 Middle Tenn State (mandatory Pick) vs #81 Georgia State

Change is good.

Change is needed.