When
I was a freshman in high school, I had one goal for my winter break. I wanted
to watch at least one quarter of each bowl game played that season. The games
meant something to me and I was making a commitment to make sure I was able to
watch at least a portion of each one. Making the task somewhat easier than it
would be today was the fact that there weren’t 35 bowl games in 1993. However,
New Year’s Day was still the official end of Bowl Season so there were quite a
few games on that day. That and I was fighting with two younger brothers who
didn’t necessarily share my goal and had other things they wanted to watch.
No, I didn’t have a girlfriend at the time,
why do you ask?
The
games were meaningful. They were larger-than-life in the way that things your
passionate about in high school take on added significance. I loved the bowl
games and the pageantry that went along with them. Seeing teams from different
conferences and different styles clash on a neutral field to see who was better
was the highlight of my sports year. At least, I thought they were meaningful.
In
reality they were probably just as meaningless as they are today. And make no
mistake, they are meaningless exhibitions played to line the pockets of the men
and women who run the bowl games. Sure, teams (and as a result, their
conferences) get a payout for playing in a bowl. But after you subtract
mandatory ticket sales, expensive hotel rooms and other expenses associated
with reaching a bowl, there’s rarely, if ever, any actual financial benefit to
playing in the game.
Aside
from tradition, there’s literally no point in the current postseason associated
with “big time” college football. It’s the only sport sponsored by the NCAA
that turns its postseason over to outside entities that have no interest in
determining a champion, but instead have nothing but a profit motive for the
games. Aside from the BCS Championship game, teams aren’t selected for bowls
based on their records or how deserving they are. No, they’re selected based on
how many tickets they can sell and how much cold hard cash those fans can bring
in. If your team “travels well,” you may get picked to go to a more prestigious
game even if your record isn’t as good as that of another team in your
conference that has a smaller fan base.
Even
coaches, who spend their careers getting kids to buy in to their program with
words like “unity” or “family” know bowl games are a charade. Otherwise, so
many of them wouldn’t leave their team for a better job before the end of their
season. Fans rightly rip Bobby Petrino for leaving the Atlanta Falcons with
three games left in their regular season to take a college job and should rip
Bobby Knight for retiring mid-season from Texas Tech for no other reason than
to have his son take over the job. Players who quit on their team are derided.
Coaches who quit on their team after the regular season but before the bowl
games are greeted with a “meh, whatever.”
Take
Western Kentucky’s Willie Taggart. After leading the team to its first bowl
spot in team history, did he stick around to finish out the season? Nope. Less
than a week after leading his alma mater to the Little Caesar’s Bowl (joke all
you want, a bowl’s a bowl), he’s jumping ship for the University of South
Florida that went 3-9 this season. I’m sure the job comes with a significant
pay raise and I certainly don’t begrudge anyone for wanting to change jobs. But
don’t spend all season telling your players that they’re family and you’re
there for them and then leave before the biggest game in the schools FBS
history. If the game were truly important, Taggart would still be at WKU to
finish out his now-former team’s season. (I’ll leave it to WKU fans to debate
if the Little Caesar’s Bowl is more or less meaningful than the three 1-AA
National Championship games the Hilltoppers have played in.)
I’ll
still probably watch some of the bowl games (though this year’s slate is decidedly
uninspiring, even if the teams actually had an incentive to play.) But I won’t
make the mistake of believing there’s any importance beyond ratings and tickets
sold. For actual meaningful football, there’s the playoffs in the FCS
(formerly, and still to me, 1-AA), Division II and Division III playoffs.
