(02-27-2015 12:57 AM)Afflicted Wrote:  YES! As a Rice fan, I'm particularly excited. We get the Heart of Dallas and New Orleans Bowls right here in our back yard, not to mention the secondary Independence tie-in. The New Mexico Bowl is perfect for UTEP or UTSA. Both would take a lot of fans. Southern Mississippi will be in the running this year for a bowl. Way to go CUSA! C'mon FAU and FIU. Get those Florida bowls!

(02-27-2015 12:57 AM)Afflicted Wrote:  YES! As a Rice fan, I'm particularly excited. We get the Heart of Dallas and New Orleans Bowls right here in our back yard, not to mention the secondary Independence tie-in. The New Mexico Bowl is perfect for UTEP or UTSA. Both would take a lot of fans. Southern Mississippi will be in the running this year for a bowl. Way to go CUSA! C'mon FAU and FIU. Get those Florida bowls!

(02-27-2015 09:46 AM)Artifice Wrote:  Not knocking the bowl line up, but I'd trade two of those lesser bowls for another shot at a P5 team. This league needs as many chances as possible to matchup its best with theirs (or, more likely, their 3rd-6th place teams).

(02-27-2015 06:40 AM)ESE84 Wrote:  

(02-27-2015 12:57 AM)Afflicted Wrote:  YES! As a Rice fan, I'm particularly excited. We get the Heart of Dallas and New Orleans Bowls right here in our back yard, not to mention the secondary Independence tie-in. The New Mexico Bowl is perfect for UTEP or UTSA. Both would take a lot of fans. Southern Mississippi will be in the running this year for a bowl. Way to go CUSA! C'mon FAU and FIU. Get those Florida bowls!

Agree. This is a very good line-up for the West. The East programs can grumble a bit. I doubt UTEP will be happy going back to Albuquerque, and UTSA has an out of conference schedule that makes 6 wins a real challenge. Should be interesting to watch Louisiana Tech, Rice and UTEP battle it out with Southern Miss a dark horse. Hope that Shreveport tie-in comes through this year!

(02-27-2015 09:57 AM)RedParallax Wrote:  I'm glad to see CUSA won't be getting the Hawaii Bowl this coming season. What a ****** bowl for 2-3 weeks of planning and resulting costs.

IMO, this is a pretty sub-par bowl lineup when you compare it to what the AAC gets in the Birmingham Bowl (vs SEC), Military Bowl (vs ACC), every-other-year Armed Forces (Big 12), their alternating-years tie for the Bitcoin Bowl being vs ACC, and their backup agreement for the Liberty, Independence, and Poinsettia Bowls (vs SEC or ACC) similar to our deal with the Independence.

Anyone can grumble about the AAC and which conference is better this year, last year, or the next year, but the bottom line is that's the best lineup of bowl tie-ins for a G5 conference and it's not even really close when you consider CUSA's tie-ins and the fact that the MWC has 1 bowl game against the PAC12, which is their only P5 tie-in bowl.

(02-27-2015 10:15 AM)pilot172000 Wrote:  

(02-27-2015 09:57 AM)RedParallax Wrote:  I'm glad to see CUSA won't be getting the Hawaii Bowl this coming season. What a ****** bowl for 2-3 weeks of planning and resulting costs.

IMO, this is a pretty sub-par bowl lineup when you compare it to what the AAC gets in the Birmingham Bowl (vs SEC), Military Bowl (vs ACC), every-other-year Armed Forces (Big 12), their alternating-years tie for the Bitcoin Bowl being vs ACC, and their backup agreement for the Liberty, Independence, and Poinsettia Bowls (vs SEC or ACC) similar to our deal with the Independence.

Anyone can grumble about the AAC and which conference is better this year, last year, or the next year, but the bottom line is that's the best lineup of bowl tie-ins for a G5 conference and it's not even really close when you consider CUSA's tie-ins and the fact that the MWC has 1 bowl game against the PAC12, which is their only P5 tie-in bowl.

Well I think its a great line up with several solid bowls. You can do the whole me too thing with the AAC all you want, just keep in mind that they were a BCS conference only a few short years ago that that has some residual affect. Just keep winning and things will always get better.

(02-27-2015 10:21 AM)RedParallax Wrote:  

(02-27-2015 10:15 AM)pilot172000 Wrote:  

(02-27-2015 09:57 AM)RedParallax Wrote:  I'm glad to see CUSA won't be getting the Hawaii Bowl this coming season. What a ****** bowl for 2-3 weeks of planning and resulting costs.

IMO, this is a pretty sub-par bowl lineup when you compare it to what the AAC gets in the Birmingham Bowl (vs SEC), Military Bowl (vs ACC), every-other-year Armed Forces (Big 12), their alternating-years tie for the Bitcoin Bowl being vs ACC, and their backup agreement for the Liberty, Independence, and Poinsettia Bowls (vs SEC or ACC) similar to our deal with the Independence.

Anyone can grumble about the AAC and which conference is better this year, last year, or the next year, but the bottom line is that's the best lineup of bowl tie-ins for a G5 conference and it's not even really close when you consider CUSA's tie-ins and the fact that the MWC has 1 bowl game against the PAC12, which is their only P5 tie-in bowl.

Well I think its a great line up with several solid bowls. You can do the whole me too thing with the AAC all you want, just keep in mind that they were a BCS conference only a few short years ago that that has some residual affect. Just keep winning and things will always get better.

I don't really see the AAC as the Big East of old since like 99% of their roster is completely different. Legally, sure, it's the former Big East if you want to look at it that way.

I can totally understand that the former WAC and Sun Belt schools really enjoy this lineup since you were used to having like 2-3 bowls each year or whatever you had, but it just feels like there's been no real improvement in the actual programs we play in the bowls, at least for us CUSA programs that have been around a while.

EDIT: Found a link for past bowl games and came up with the following break down since 2000:

2000-2001: 4 bowl games, 1 P5
2002-2007, 2009-2012, 2014: 5 bowl games (1 P5 in '02, '03, '05, '12, and '14; 0 P5 in 2004; 2 P5 in '06, '07, '09-'11)
2008: 6 bowl games, 2 P5 (Big East, SEC)
2013: 6 bowl games, 2 P5 (ACC, SEC)
2015: 6 bowl games, 1 P5 (Big 12)

We had 2 P5 bowl games from 2006-2011, as well as 2013. This was impacted by the Big East's fall from grace as an automatic qualifier, so counting that as somewhat of an anomalous variable, I suppose you could say we've stood pat at the number of quality bowls throughout the years.

Also note that 2015 is just what's projected and it seems this is all in constant state of flux with programs getting traded amongst bowls almost every year, so who knows how it'll end up. Just interesting to see how it all broke down in the recent past.