Part of what used to appeal to me about the bowls was finally getting a chance to measure up teams between the various conferences. There are very few regular season games between teams from different P5 conferences, and most of them are done by mid September. That is mostly lost now when so much of winning or losing could come down to which team has their roster more intact.
This so much. I cared about the bowls because it was chance to show what conference and Teams were actually good and not just propped up with easy schedule. The bowl.game should be the most important game. They get a month to prepare and matchups should be a measuring stick for the final ratings
These bowl games used to seem like such an achievement just to get to, let alone win. I remember how big these games used to be even if it was vs Boise st at Boise st, in whatever bowl that was. Now it seems to not matter to the point where guys aren’t staying for these games. I understand tampas decision and get both sides of it but just sucks that bowl games will never mean what they used to.
Maybe it has been mentioned already, but I saw last night that Florida State has 15 starters missing the game against Georgia. For all intents and purposes, any non-playoff bowl is immaterial other than a trip to some destination and giving young guys extra practice and departing players one more game.
It's why the expanded playoff is a good thing, as a few more of these games become important again. Now, some will say it will only keep diminishing the non-playoff bowls, but to that I say we are already there anyway. Bowls should be fun exhibitions to cap off a season for teams and fans. The Pop Tarts Bowl was EXACTLY what non-playoff bowls should be. Embrace the goofiness and weirdness. Have fun and don't take it seriously.
Definitely. The non-playoff bowls were dead in terms of importance the minute the playoff started. Need to just expand to an FCS style playoff.
