(11-20-2014 11:23 AM)HuskieJohn Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 11:05 AM)uakronkid Wrote:  I thought that bowls get their choice of which MAC team would play for them, in the order of their contracts.

Its different this year with the Potato, AL and Boca Bowls all able to flip flop since they are all owned by ESPN.

Sorting bowls into tiers rather than into a strict ladder is fairly common with the most recent wave of bowl contract ... after experience with "bowl fatigue" substantially hurting turn-out, they set up a lot of the new agreements to allow teams to avoid trips to the same bowl in close succession. So, eg, the ACC has their Gator/Music City rotation, Belk, Sun and Pinstripe bowls in a tier below the Orange and Russell Athletic, and then the Military, Advocare 100 and Detroit bowls in a tier below that.

Even when bowls had those formal rights, we've seen the ones with MAC affiliation willing to trade spots to help the MAC place more teams in bowls.