Matthew Fabian
The Wyoming Cowboy football season is officially over.
Well, it was over the moment North Dakota kicked off in September, but now it’s ova over. The Cowboys finished the season 2-10, and they will certainly be on the outside, looking in, come bowl selection time.
Even with the exclusion of the Wyoming Cowboys, the college bowl system is broken. Very broken. Deadspin released an article early last week, citing that there will not be enough bowl eligible teams this year to fill every bowl. There are 41 (FORTY ONE!) bowl games this year, needing 82 (EIGHTY TWO!) teams to fill those bowls. Yet, the NCAA is not going to be able to fill all 82 slots with teams that have achieved six wins. That’s right, some sappy 5-7 teams will find themselves with a bowl invitation.
Outside of their respective fan bases, who is legitimately watching these games? Are you going to sit down and flip on the Raycom Media Camellia Bowl? How about the Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl? Perhaps the Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl is your go-to game. I certainly will not be watching any of these bowl games, most likely due to the fact I have better things to do than watch some really awful football.
What is the reasoning for all these godforsaken bowl games? The NCAA usually rattles off an answer akin to ‘it’s for the kids.’ Oh, I believe you NCAA. Certainly some senior at a MAC school is really looking forward to his appearance in the Popeyes Bahamas Bowl. That will be his big chance to show off to all those ESPN3 viewers that he is the real deal!
What a load of crap. The NCAA is like any other sports organization. They want those dolla dolla bills, y’all. Each bowl game is a chance to exploit some sorry fans to buy some tickets, merchandising, viewership or all of the above. The funniest part of all this is, they claim to exist for the student-athlete – there to protect students, and the integrity of the game. Then, they present us with more bowl games. This decimates their cause all together.
First, the football season is long and grueling enough already. From July until December, football teams take no days off and work. Hitting, running and working for the school they represent. Football is not a safe sport either. Apparently, continually smashing your head into somebody else’s is not good for your brain. Then year after year, the NCAA wants all these athletes to play another, meaningless game. Once again the NCAA is making a quick buck off the backs (or in this case, heads) of the students they vowed to protect. Corruption at its finest. If Wyoming won the Hawai’i Bowl, exactly how excited would you be? I would be more than willing to bet, based on my interactions with the football team; they would rather take their 6-6 record than have to play in a completely irrelevant bowl game.
Moving along, at what point is the bowl system simply too big? If 82 teams go to a bowl game, your program must be in really awful shape to not go to a bowl game for more than five years. Getting a bowl invitation used to be a point of pride. Now? Oh, congrats you managed to scrounge up five wins have fun playing in the Gildan New Mexico Bowl. I do not constantly need to watch football during the holiday season.
Then, when we finally get to the College Football Playoff, I am nearly burned out. Day-in, day-out college football is playing after the Conference championship weekend. Make it all the sweeter, and eliminate these pesky bowl games. Of course at this point, the system can only grow. Telling all those sponsors to stuff it would not bode well for the NCAA checkbook. It will only grow, and eventually every team and every business will be a part of a bowl game.
‘Tis the season, Pokes fans. Don’t worry, soon enough one of two things will happen: Wyoming will win enough games to make a bowl game or the NCAA will create enough bowl games to include us in a meaningless, bogus bowl game.
Then Bohl will have job security for another five years.
