{"id":29704,"date":"2015-12-10T09:01:42","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T17:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/changes-coming-after-bowl-system-hits-record-40-games\/"},"modified":"2015-12-10T09:01:42","modified_gmt":"2015-12-10T17:01:42","slug":"changes-coming-after-bowl-system-hits-record-40-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/changes-coming-after-bowl-system-hits-record-40-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Changes coming after bowl system hits record 40 games"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014<\/strong> The bowl system has finally snapped after years of being stretched thin.<\/p>\n

Three teams with losing records will be among the 80 playing in a record 40 bowl games over the next month and two teams from the same conference will play each other in a bowl.<\/p>\n

This offseason, a task force will study the bowl system, intent on making changes to prevent that from happening again. The NCAA has largely removed itself from the bowl business, allowing conferences, communities and television networks to create postseason games. The NCAA is not looking to take control of the bowls, but everyone agrees adjustments are needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe members are going to have to figure out, what\u2019s the purpose of bowl games?\u201d NCAA President Mark Emmert told reporters Wednesday at the IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum. \u201cIs it a reward for a successful season or is it just another game that we\u2019re going to provide an opportunity for?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ten years ago a bit less than 50 percent of the FBS earned a postseason bid. This season, 63 percent of 127 FBS teams will play in bowls, including new games in Florida and Arizona.<\/p>\n

The new NCAA football oversight committee was forced to tweak a safety net policy to allow 5-7 teams to be bowl-eligible based on their Academic Progress Rates. That let the Big Ten fill its contracted bowl spots with Nebraska and Minnesota, though the new Arizona Bowl in Tucson ended having to match Mountain West rivals.<\/p>\n

Colorado State and Nevada, who play in different divisions and didn\u2019t meet this season, will play Dec. 29. That angered Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, the system is broken,\u201d Thompson said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby leads the football oversight committee and said the goal of the task force is not specifically to cut bowl games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the fact is we do have too many bowl games and we have more bowl games waiting in the wings,\u201d Bowlsby said. \u201cBut you can\u2019t fault the communities from going and ahead and doing something if they want to. We\u2019re going to have to do a deep dive on it and figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Figuring it out won\u2019t be easy. There are some clear disagreements among major players.<\/p>\n

ACC Commissioner John Swofford said athletic directors in his conference would prefer teams be at least 7-5 to be bowl eligible. Currently, the minimum requirement for bowl eligibility is six victories and a .500 record.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the Southeastern Conference, the opportunity for 6-6 teams to participate is important,\u201d SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said.<\/p>\n

As many established bowls made deals with Power Five conferences in recent years, Group of Five conferences such as the Mountain West, American Athletic Conference and Mid-American Conference have worked to create bowls to provide postseason opportunities for their members.<\/p>\n

Last season, Temple of the American went 6-6 and didn\u2019t go to a bowl game.<\/p>\n

South Florida Athletic Director Mark Harlan said it was tough to hear his counterpart at Temple, Patrick Kraft, recount the story of how he told last year\u2019s team it wouldn\u2019t be playing in the postseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to make sure 6-6 teams are rewarded,\u201d Harlan said.<\/p>\n

Some have suggested drawing a hard line at six victories and not filling spots if there are not enough eligible teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have a candid conversation about bowls either going dark, that\u2019s an assumption of risk that they\u2019ll have to understand that there might not be teams, or do you structure a set of expectations, whether it\u2019s some criteria bowls have to meet to be a part of consideration,\u201d Sankey said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s early to speculate on what changes are coming, but some are expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our society, sometimes we don\u2019t put up a traffic light until there have been a couple of accidents at an intersection,\u201d FBA executive director Wright Waters said during a teleconference with reporters this week. \u201cThis may be the opportunity to force that conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 The bowl system has finally snapped after years of being stretched thin. Three teams with losing records will be among the 80 playing in a record 40 bowl games over the next month and two teams from the same conference will play each other in a bowl. This offseason, a task force […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":29705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-29704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29704"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=29704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}