[Click here to hear the audio from Michigan Radio: Getting Bowled Over]
The college football bowl season has always been a little crazy – but most of that used to be fun crazy. But lately, it’s been turning bad crazy – and fast. Here’s why.
Michigan played in the first ever bowl game against Stanford on New Year’s Day in 1902. The Wolverines won, 49-0 – but didn’t play another bowl game for 46 years.
Pasadena didn’t host another game until 1916, and no other bowl games even existed until 1935, when the Sugar Bowl, the Orange Bowl, and the Sun Bowl all started, followed two years later by the Cotton Bowl. But the games were just glorified exhibitions, created to reward a few teams with a nice trip, and promote Southern cities.
That started to change in 1948, when Michigan’s Fritz Crisler played matchmaker between the current Big Ten and the Pac-12, who started sending their league champions to play each other at the Rose Bowl every New Year’s Day. If you were second place, you only got to play in a bowl if your league champion repeated, because the university presidents didn’t want their teams to go to a bowl game two years in a row.
Bowl games were considered so insignificant that Notre Dame didn’t bother to go to any bowl games from 1926 until 1970 – and still won seven national titles during that stretch.
But when Michigan’s undefeated, fourth-ranked 1973 team tied top-ranked Ohio State, and was denied a trip to Pasadena by a vote of athletic directors, the Big Ten ended its 25 year-old ban, and let any team in the league go to any bowl game that would have them.
Since then the number of bowl games has more than tripled, from eleven to 35, and they’re spread out over a month. New Year’s Day used to be reserved for the four best bowl games, with a national title determined that day. This year not one college team played on New Year’s Day – the NFL took it over – but 24 teams played in the New Year, well into the start of the semester for many schools.
On January eighth – January eighth! – Northern Illinois played Arkansas State in the Godaddy.com Bowl. How many things are wrong with that sentence? Is there anything right about it?
Then, the next day – scratch that — the next night, Monday, Alabama played Louisiana State in the long awaited national championship game. The game ended close to midnight. How many kids stayed up that late on a school night? Let’s hope none.
The bowl games were expanded to generate money – for the bowls and networks, mind you, not the schools, and certainly not the players. Dozens of teams lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and their students got little more than injuries. Many of the stadiums were half-filled, and the national title game got the lowest TV ratings in a decade. As one of my friends said, “It’s January ninth. We’ve already moved on.”
And now, of course, the fans and writers are calling for a playoff system. Yes, clearly, we need more games, all played by unpaid athletes who don’t get a cent more, win or lose, while their coaches can get millions in bonuses for a single bowl victory.
Do not ask for whom the buck tolls. It tolls for the adults, not the kids.
Why do we need a playoff? To determine a true national champion, we’re told. Will removing all doubt about who’s college football’s national champion really make our lives that much better? Back in 1997, one poll named Michigan the national champion, and the other named Nebraska. Neither team asked for a playoff to settle the issue, and both schools still claim the title. What’s so horrible about that?
Since then they changed to system to produce only one national champion each year. Has our happiness gone up accordingly?
We need fewer games, not more. The more they make college football mimic pro football, the more of a minor league it becomes, they less special it is.
The people who understand the actual appeal of college football the least, happen to be the very leaders who are changing it the most.
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I should point out John that players do in fact get quiet a bit more than injuries. Bowls give out gift packages to players, and they’re usually a lot better than shaving kits. They’re often worth 500$ in total value. You can see a list of what the SEC bowl team players recieved
I agree there are too many bowls and the bowl season runs too long, but it’s not all bad. Even if schools are losing money on bowl trips, they’re gaining national exposure for their athletic and academic programs. There’s substantially more parity in college football now than 20 years ago. I think part of that can be attributed to the explosion of bowl games which gave mid-major teams more media exposure.
It’s also nice to have good football on almost anytime during the christams-new years holiday, when people are typically off work.
Just FYI, Loyal Readers, this is Joel Mousseau, who agreed to included his last name, and is therefore following our simple policy: if you’re not profane or too insane and leave your name, it’s all fair game. Thank you, Joel!
As an aside, schools in New Orleans delayed opening on average 2 hours to accommodate the game, or fans desires to watch and participate. Granted the BCS Championship game was a home game but it reinforced the idea that this was acceptable.
We won’t get less bowls until they stop being cost-effective for ESPN. Want change? Stop watching the superfluous ones. And though it may be true that some teams lose money on travel/tickets because of their participation in the bowls, is that not recouped later on when they receive their share of network monies from their conferences?
one of several reasons why Michigan should lead the way to a new era for football and join the Ivy League
I turned off my TV with three minutes left in the BCS “Championship” game with only one thing on my mind; College football is my favorite sport by far and I simply hate bowl games.
Fact 1 – Bowl games don’t mean anything. Fact 2 – Players, coaches, and fans want games that mean something.
Whether we like it or not, Division 1 college football is the minor league of the NFL. Last I checked both college and pro players can choose whether they play or not. Freedom doesn’t mean “fair” but that’s life. Sounds like for our modern football era we are going to have to have the players at these levels sign waivers as to not end up in court being sued for damages (physical and emotional).
I think it’s time to end the bowl games, they are agonizing to watch. All the work and sacrifice of teams and fans for a TV show that may or may not be entertaining.
It’s time to create a playoff system and make the games mean something. If it is too unfair than teams can choose to not participate or they can play some of their backups that have been sitting on the bench all season.
If I’m so wrong; let’s ask the Wayne State University players if they would have rather had played in one meaningless bowl game instead of playing in the games that made up their valiant run at a national championship this year.
Well, you’ve caught me going off the top of my head before, but, only two teams from the Big Ten could go to a bowl game for the 1975 season, my senior year. The Orange Bowl said they would gladly take the loser of the UM-Ohio game.
Not sure when that brilliant crew of ADs voted, it was clearly after the 10-0-1 season of 1973 when we were denied a bowl, it took effect after another 10-1 season (1972 being the first) when we were again denied a bowl.