Next month a D1A committee will be looking at the problem of too many bowls and not enough eligible teams. I don't expect them to force any conferences to drop any current bowls (they won't approve any new bowls anytime soon, either). I'm sure they'll allow some bowls to not be played in a given year. But there's lots to consider -- how to decide which bowl game(s) to cancel; contracts with the bowl organizers; the money organizers spend preparing for bowls; ill-will with bowl organizers going forward if their game is cancelled; keeping conferences and the networks happy. Allowing 5-7 teams in isn't palatable at the moment. The B12 commish wants only teams with winning records to be bowl-eligible, but the SEC commish wants to keep it at 6-6 teams too, so don't look for any movement there. Plus, raising the bar really doesn't address the problem.

If they don't expand the playoff, there are two things I'd like to see them do. One, cancel any bowl game where both primary conferences can't send a bowl-eligible team. That would've meant no Quick Lane Bowl this year because both the B10 and the ACC didn't have enough bowl-eligible teams. Two, if there are an odd number of bowl-eligible teams (like this year's 77), the teams that became bowl eligible in the last game of the season get slots only after all other bowl-eligible teams are slotted, regardless of contractual obligations. This would help cut down on any shenanigans that conferences might pull to get teams eligible. I'm really suspicious of Ga St's 27-pt win at Ga Southern in the last game of the season, especially given Southern's whuppin of BG and given that the Sun Belt commish tried to buy bowl slots last year. This would mean that six teams (Wash, Tulsa, Indiana,VaTech, Ga St and K-St) would be considered for five slots, with one team left out. Two bowl games would've been canceled.

If we assume that there is a method to their madness, perhaps they deliberately created too many bowls, which in turn has created spaces where they could play an expanded playoff.

They already have done that with the "Access Bowls." I don't think it's coincidental that they came up with 6 so that the 4 that aren't semi-final sites are in a natural position to become the quarterfinals. I kind of would like to see the first round games played at the higher seed's home stadium. How fun would it be to watch bama, usc or fsu have to come up North and play in the middle of December. This year, Stanford would have to play in East Lansing.

I don't see the playoffs ever expanding beyond 8: 5 P5 Champions and three at-large teams. The best the G5 can hope for is that they'll be guaranteed one of those three spots.

Once we got past 10 or 15 bowls we already lost anything pertaining to the prestige argument. What is the difference between 30 bowls, 40 bowls, 50 bowls, or 60 bowls? Who cares? How is this really a problem? I say cut back to 10 bowls or just don't worry about it.

Agreed. I like football. Give me as much as possible of it in late December.

One thing they'll address is the purpose of bowl games. If it's to reward a good season, then 5-7 teams -- and maybe even 6-6 teams -- shouldn't be in the mix. If it's just to play another game, why not add one to the regular season for everybody and open the playoffs to more teams. If the real purpose is to put butts in the seats for the organizers and eyes on the tube for the networks, then most bowls are total failures on both counts. We've already had one bowl game this year where both team finished the season with a losing record. That kind of thing makes the bowl season a joke.

I agree that there is no problem to be fixed. If you have something better to do, then don't watch them. Otherwise, get in a bowl pool or bet on them and you have a reason to watch Washington-Southern Miss.

Actually, the MAC also sent seven teams to bowls in 2012 (Ohio, Toledo, BSU, CMU, BG, NIU and Kent). That was the year NIU went to the Orange Bowl. The MAC has sent at least five teams to bowls every season since '08.

I don't mind not watching a bowl. I think I've seen three in their entirety so far this season. Don't plan to watch too many more. I think it's stupid to make a big deal out of a 6-6 team playing a 5-7 team, no matter who they are. But the whole point of having a bowl (from the networks' perspective) is to get people to watch, so they don't want people just changing the channel. They pump millions into these games and having people not watch does them no good. Similarly, the charities these bowls help are helped a lot less if people don't buy tickets.

And I think there are some who still want bowls to be used as a reward for success. If you wind up having 0-12 Kansas guaranteed a bowl game, it renders all the other bowl games meaningless (I know there are some who think they're all meaningless). You might as well just add a game to the regular season.

+1

Yesterday all three 5-7 teams won their Bowl games.