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re: Myth: "The BCS/CFP ruined college football by making all other bowl games irrelevant."
Posted on 1/5/21 at 8:43 am to Ag Zwin
Posted on 1/5/21 at 8:43 am to Ag Zwin
What you're seeing now is a really a return to normal.
For most of their existence, bowl games didn't really matter. There weren't very many and were exhibitions that paired teams that rarely met in the regular season and gave players a chance to go places they otherwise might not get to see.
The Rose Bowl paired the Big-10 vs Pac-10.
The SEC champ went to the Sugar.
The Southwestern Conference went to the Cotton
The Big-8 (now the Big-12) went to the Orange.
In addition to those, you had the Liberty, Gator, Sun, and Citrus and that was it. The NCAA wouldn't even allow more games to be created. Notre Dame didn't play in bowls until 1970 and IIRC, if you were Big 10 it was Rose Bowl or bust.
Bowls didn't count towards final rankings. AP didn't permanently change to awarding titles after the bowls until 1968. UPI (now the Coach's poll) didn't do so until 1974.
They were supposed to be fun and not so serious but when the polls made that change, they became a lot more important. Come in ranked top 5, lose, and you might finish outside the top 10 - which gets coaches at high level programs fired.
Now for those high level teams, the goal is the playoffs once again returning the bowls to their secondary status.
Pretty good short article here.
For most of their existence, bowl games didn't really matter. There weren't very many and were exhibitions that paired teams that rarely met in the regular season and gave players a chance to go places they otherwise might not get to see.
The Rose Bowl paired the Big-10 vs Pac-10.
The SEC champ went to the Sugar.
The Southwestern Conference went to the Cotton
The Big-8 (now the Big-12) went to the Orange.
In addition to those, you had the Liberty, Gator, Sun, and Citrus and that was it. The NCAA wouldn't even allow more games to be created. Notre Dame didn't play in bowls until 1970 and IIRC, if you were Big 10 it was Rose Bowl or bust.
Bowls didn't count towards final rankings. AP didn't permanently change to awarding titles after the bowls until 1968. UPI (now the Coach's poll) didn't do so until 1974.
They were supposed to be fun and not so serious but when the polls made that change, they became a lot more important. Come in ranked top 5, lose, and you might finish outside the top 10 - which gets coaches at high level programs fired.
Now for those high level teams, the goal is the playoffs once again returning the bowls to their secondary status.
Pretty good short article here.
This post was edited on 1/5/21 at 8:46 am
1
Posted on 1/5/21 at 8:58 am to JustGetItRight
quote:
For most of their existence, bowl games didn't really matter.
Consider that until a few years ago, Army, one of the most decorated programs in college football history, had played in exactly 5 college bowl games.
Bowl games started to become important in the 60s with the Arkansas/Alabama debacle. Which, the football gods being cruel gods, turned around and bit Arkansas the very next year. But you would have to wait for Bear Bryant to start throwing his weight around to create unofficial national title games in the 70s for them to really get a ton of attention.
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