This is becoming an annual Rant come Bowl Season as I
continue to feed ESPN ideas on how to #MakeBowlSeasonGreatAgain. My format is simple, conference tie-ins to bowls
suck and everyone loves drafts. Basically,
because the playoff and the NY6 Bowls eat up so many of the great teams, the other
matchups leave a lot to be desired. Then
throw in all the bowl tie-ins with each conference and all the different rules
each of those conferences have in their selection process and we seem to always
miss on the great common-sense matchups and instead get a bunch of BLAH. I have fixed all that.
A BOWL DRAFT!!! Instead of the 4-hour show that ESPN aired today unveiling all
the bowl games, we have a live draft.
The rules are simple. The draft order goes by the bowl payouts
from the previous bowl season. You want
the best teams, you payout the most money.
Every year bowl payout bids are sealed until AFTER the bowl games are
announced. The payout figure is then
used for the next year to determine the draft order. This would make it that no
bowls would have 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. This also could drive up the payouts in
bowls, which will make university presidents and athletic directors very happy.
Here is the Draft Order based on the 2018 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. Peach Bowl
2. Fiesta Bowl
Remaining New Year’s 6 Bowls (in a rotating order):
3. Rose Bowl
4. Orange Bowl
5. Cotton Bowl
6. Sugar Bowl
All Other Bowls:
7. Citrus Bowl ($8,550,000)
8. Alamo Bowl ($7,975,000)
9. Outback Bowl ($6,350,000)
10. Holiday Bowl ($6,326,258)
11. Texas Bowl ($6,300,000)
12. Camping World Bowl ($5,800,000)
13. Music City Bowl ($5,650,000)
14. Belk Bowl ($4,505,556)
15. Pinstripe Bowl ($4,300,000)
16. Liberty Bowl ($4,294,681)
17. RedBox Bowl ($3,600,000)
18. Sun Bowl ($3,447,568)
19. TaxSlayer Bowl ($3,168,292)
20. Las Vegas ($2,760,000)
21. Military Bowl ($2,066,990)
22. ServPro First Responders Bowl ($1,667,000)
23. Birmingham Bowl ($1,650,000)
24. Lending Tree Bowl ($1,500,000)
25. Independence Bowl ($1,248,280)
26. Gasparilla Bowl ($1,133,735)
27. New Mexico Bowl ($1,050,000)
28. Cheez-It Bowl ($1,037,118)
29. Hawaii Bowl ($1,000,000)
30. Boca Raton Bowl ($1,000,000)
31. Idaho Potato Bowl ($950,000)
32. New Orleans Bowl ($925,000)
33. Armed Forces Bowl ($900,000)
34. Cure Bowl ($751,115)
35. Quick Lane Bowl ($750,000)
36. Frisco Bowl ($750,000)
37. Arizona Bowl ($412,920)
38. Camellia Bowl ($250,000)
39. Bahamas Bowl ($225,000)
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 Rose Bowl
would have the 1st choice after the CFB Playoff Committee selects the top 4
playoff teams. The Rose Bowl would then
have the next 10 teams in the rankings available to pick from. This means that the CFP Committee would have
to rank all bowl eligible teams (79 this season). For this exercise I am using the CBS Top 130
Rankings from their website. 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 1st 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
79 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. The current
format has teams limited to only a few locations based on their conference
tie-ins. 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.
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 2019 SELECTIONS: (My Mock Fake Bowl Draft)
ROSE BOWL – #6 Oregon vs #8 Wisconsin
ORANGE BOWL - #5 Georgia vs #10 Penn State
FIESTA BOWL - #9 Florida vs #11 Utah
COTTON BOWL - ##7 Baylor vs #13 Alabama
CITRUS BOWL - #12 Auburn vs #15 Notre Dame
ALAMO BOWL - #14 Michigan (Mandatory Pick) vs #22 USC
OUTBACK BOWL - #16 Iowa (Mandatory Pick) vs #23 Navy
HOLIDAY BOWL - #17 Memphis (Mandatory Pick) vs #18 Minnesota
(Mandatory Pick)
TEXAS BOWL - #19 Boise State (Mandatory Pick) vs #20 Appalachian
State (Mandatory Pick)
CAMPING WORLD BOWL - #21 Cincinnati (Mandatory Pick) vs #31
Texas A&M
MUSIC CITY BOWL - #24 Virginia (Mandatory Pick) vs #25
Oklahoma State
BELK BOWL - #26 Kansas State (Mandatory Pick) vs #30 Indiana
PINSTRIPE BOWL - #27 Air Force (Mandatory Pick) vs #28 SMU (Mandatory
Pick)
LIBERTY BOWL - #29 Central Florida (Mandatory Pick) vs #37
Texas
RED BOX BOWL - #32 UL-Lafayette (Mandatory Pick) vs #33
Washington
SUN BOWL - #34 Iowa State (Mandatory Pick ) vs #35 Virginia
Tech
TAXSLAYER BOWL - #36 Florida Atlantic (Mandatory Pick) vs #41
Tennessee
LAS VEGAS BOWL - #38 Wake Forest (Mandatory Pick) vs #42
Arizona State
MILITARY BOWL - #39 San Diego State (Mandatory Pick) vs #40
Temple (Mandatory Pick)
SERVPRO FIRST RESPONDERS BOWL - #43 Kentucky vs #52 BYU
BIRMINGHAM BOWL - #44 Louisville (Mandatory Pick) vs #46 UAB
LENDING TREE BOWL - #45 Louisiana Tech (Mandatory Pick) vs
#53 North Carolina
INDEPENDENCE BOWL - #47 Marshall (Mandatory Pick) vs #57
Florida State
GASPARILLA BOWL - #48 Western Kentucky (Mandatory Pick) vs #59
Illinois
NEW MEXICO BOWL - #49 Cal (Mandatory Pick) vs #50 Hawaii (Mandatory
Pick)
CHEEZ-ITS BOWL - #51 Pitt (Mandatory Pick) vs #63 Michigan
State
HAWAII BOWL - #54 Utah State (Mandatory Pick) vs #61 Washingtoni
State
BOCA RATON BOWL - #55 Tulane (Mandatory Pick) vs #56 Central
Michigan (Mandatory Pick)
IDAHO POTATO BOWL - #58 Wyoming (Mandatory Pick) vs #62
Mississippi State
NEW ORLEANS BOWL - #60 Georgia Southern (Mandatory Pick) vs
#66 Miami (FL)
ARMED FORCES BOWL - #64 Boston College vs #70 Arkansas State
CURE BOWL - #67 Georgia State vs #71 Western Michigan
QUICK LANE BOWL - #65 Southern Miss (Mandatory Pick) vs #72 Miami (OH)
FRISCO BOWL - #68 Charlotte (Mandatory Pick) vs #69 Buffalo
ARIZONA BOWL – #73 Nevada vs #75 Ohio
CAMELLIA BOWL - #74 Liberty vs #76 Toledo
BAHAMAS BOWL - #78 Eastern Michigan vs #79 Florida
International
Change is good.
Change is needed.
