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All those "irrelevant" bowls are the ones that are still set up according to the need addressed by the original four bowls -- that teams from different parts of the country could take advantage of the holiday season to play a game for fun in a warm weather venue against a team they could not play in the regular season. When teams had to travel by trains, it took days to travel east to Miami or west to Pasadena.

Two things had to happen for the present plethora of bowls to happen. High speed large jet planes and - particularly for northern climes - enclosed venues. Most bowl games are still in sunbelt states, played in open air stadiums and still played during the winter holidays.

Bowl games are part of the free enterprise economy -- based on the desire to succeed economically and to promote tourism to the host cities. Their prime sources of income are TV contracts and local businesses that buy up tickets to promote their image as good local citizens. Some put up enough money to get their name on the bowl game.

The criticism that a couple of 5-7 teams played in bowls is more a comment on how unfairly the P5 centric system is operated. G5 teams with 6-6 and 7-5 records went uninvited to enable at least two P5 teams with 5-7 records to play.

And to talk "irrelevancy" of any bowl, ALL bowl games except the three for a National Championship are irrelevant varying only slightly in degree of that term. Since only about a dozen teams get to play in those three games, the rest are mainly playing in bowl games for the fun of it.

They need to just not add any more. Stay at current number.

(02-23-2016 07:44 PM)stc Wrote:  They need to just not add any more. Stay at current number.

In our free market economy, bowl games will be treated like any entertainment choices. Many will be set up and few will make enough money to last a long time. Their number should be, and probably will be, determined by their competitive capability. Some bowls have been fortunate in the way they turned out, but there is no way to know in advance if a game will be one-sided or a shootout decided in its final minutes.

It is similar to the fact that since many high school grads don't do well in college that people are fond of saying that "not everyone is college material". The problem with that is that it is an evaluation after the fact. Who would have liked being so designated while still a high school student and had their academic future shot down in flames without being given a chance at success?

As long as entities are willing to pay the fare ...

(02-23-2016 06:50 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  The criticism that a couple of 5-7 teams played in bowls is more a comment on how unfairly the P5 centric system is operated. G5 teams with 6-6 and 7-5 records went uninvited to enable at least two P5 teams with 5-7 records to play.

This didn't happen. All 77 bowl-eligible teams went to bowl games. The only reason 5-7 teams were invited to bowls is because there weren't any more 6-win-or-better teams.

Can't have a kneejerk reaction to something that happens once in a while. If it becomes the norm or a trend, though...