(08-12-2013 05:10 PM)panicstricken Wrote:  I understand all that.

Its just sad. We shouldve been lobbying for a MWC-AAC champions bowl from day one. Now we have nothing for our champion.

I would still argue that CUSA 3.0 has just as good if not a better bowl line up than we do. We dont have a single place that is real destination. Nothing for our Champion. Nothing. Period. We wont have anything for our Champion. Nothing is left.

The MWC has Poinsetta and Vegas. Id take either of those over playing 6-6 Kentucky in birmingham. They will probably wrap up XMAS with the PAC 12. Again a much better bowl than any of ours.

CUSA has the HOD bowl. Ill take the cotton bowl on New Years Day over anything we have. Lets be real the ACC will probably never play in the stupid Beef Bowl. It will be CUSA.

you'd have a hard time getting the MWC champ away from Vegas vs. a PAC 12 team, the same way with CUSA champ from Dallas vs. Big 12/Big 10 team

Both conferences are in better positions.

That was my point.

The AAC is once again working from a position of weakness.

Who is going to come to this magical Aresco bowl?

(08-12-2013 04:38 PM)BullsFanInTX Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 03:27 PM)Bull Wrote:  Ever the optimist, I would say this... at least we have a majority of bowls against P5 schools. Yeah, they may be low picks, and not our preferred bowls, but at least we have this. Just a few weeks ago many were speculating that the P5 would not play G5 schools in bowls AT ALL. The SBC, MAC, etc don't have these, and they should be winnable games. (They better be...) Win 'em al and it certainly makes the point we can hang at their level. Yeah I know, the media might not give us much credit... but it's far better than beating up on SBC (etc.) teams.

That's the positive side of it...that our lineup will be better than any other G5 conf...by far. Outside of the AAC (which will hopefully have 5 bowls against P5 opponents), there are only 2 bowls against P5...one for CUSA and one for MWC (possibly 2 if Christmas bowl gets off ground). Zero for Sun Belt and MAC. It is vitally important we stay ahead of all of these conferences. It appears that the only conference that the P5 want to play in bowls is the AAC. This is important.

I don't think the bowl games are going to be a significant advantage for the AAC over the other G5. A couple of low tier tie-ins vs. the SEC and ACC isn't going to be worth much in the recruiting wars.

The AAC is ahead of the other G5 leagues though because of a big $$$ advantage so I wouldn't worry about the bowls. AAC schools will spend 2 million on football and basketball coaches to retain them while the other leagues will not. If the performance of the AAC is strong enough over the next 5-6 years it has the potential to become a contract league in its own right.

(08-12-2013 05:27 PM)panicstricken Wrote:  Both conferences are in better positions.

That was my point.

The AAC is once again working from a position of weakness.

Who is going to come to this magical Aresco bowl?

it will probably turn into a AAC vs. CUSA/MAC/Sun Belt bowl because most of the bigger conferences have already announced their tie-ins

(08-12-2013 05:10 PM)panicstricken Wrote:  I understand all that.

Its just sad. We shouldve been lobbying for a MWC-AAC champions bowl from day one. Now we have nothing for our champion.

I would still argue that CUSA 3.0 has just as good if not a better bowl line up than we do. We dont have a single place that is real destination. Nothing for our Champion. Nothing. Period. We wont have anything for our Champion. Nothing is left.

The MWC has Poinsetta and Vegas. Id take either of those over playing 6-6 Kentucky in birmingham. They will probably wrap up XMAS with the PAC 12. Again a much better bowl than any of ours.

CUSA has the HOD bowl. Ill take the cotton bowl on New Years Day over anything we have. Lets be real the ACC will probably never play in the stupid Beef Bowl. It will be CUSA.

C'mon now. I'm not happy at all with the bowl line-up, but even I wouldn't say its possibly worse than CUSA 3.0.

First of all, you don't even know what CUSA has beyond the Heart of Dallas. But, lets be real, the Heart of Dallas will likely be against the bottom bowl qualified team from the Big-12 or Big-10. Lets not build this up to be the Rose Bowl. The truth is, we likely will have the EXACT same matchup across town in the Armed Forces Bowl---except our 4th or 5th place team will be playing in the game.

No, we don't have a showcase game. Instead, we have 4-5 games that are as good or better than the HOD. We have a variety of P5 opponents---SEC, B-12, Big-10, ACC---maybe even the Pac-12.

As for destinations--CUSA will likely have--

Dallas
New Mexico
St Pete
Hawaii--(on X-mas Day, so nobody travels here, but it is fun for the kids)
Mobile?
Little Rock?
Baca Raton?


We will likely have

Miami
St Pete
New Orleans
Annapolis/DC
Ft Worth/Dallas
Birmingham--gag

That's 5 decent destinations. My guess is we might sign some sort of agreement that would make us the primary backup for a pool of nice P-5 bowls. If that happens we could end up with a couple of nice bowl locations every year to pile on top of the above line-up.

Look, its not the bowl lineup that we hoped for. And frankly, no one is more disappointed than me about not having an AAC signature bowl (you'd think we could land one nice bowl for our champ). But I still think some creativity and innovative thinking may still allow us to place our champ a respectable post season destination. The good news is, that even our 4 or 5th place teams could be in bowls against P-5 competition. Given the current bowl landscape---that's a win.

(08-12-2013 01:14 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 01:09 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 01:00 PM)BullsFanInTX Wrote:  Who knows. My guess between 50-75% of the time. But we really don't have any history other than last year on how many teams a 14 team conf. will put in a bowl. The old BBVA got filled by the SEC almost all the time when selecting the 8/9 shared pick from a 12 team SEC. Ole Miss, Kentucky, and South Carolina went to 3 out of last 4 BBVA bowls (SMU was chosen as a replacement the year the SEC didn't fill it).

But that was before the SEC could put more than two teams into the CFP. If you go by last season's finish, the SEC had nine bowl-eligible teams, but five of them would have participated in the CFP in either the semifinals, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, or at-large. They would have left six of these tie-ins unfulfilled.

That's why i think there's still value in having a secondary tie-in to say the Liberty Bowl - as it is very likely the SEC won't have 10 teams outside the CFP to fill all their slots.

Well, here's the silver lining. As strange as it may seem---many of these lower bowls being P-5 vs P-5 actually works in favor of signing fewer primary bowl ties and more back-up ties.

No....

1) Only only the very last picks of BCS conference required a backup in the previous format. Moving from 6 conferences to 5 naturally reduces the amount of backups required.

2) Instead of the PAC signing 7 bowls for 10 teams, they are going with 8 for 12. The SEC is going from 10 bowls for 12 to 10 for 14. The B1G is going from 8 bowls for 11 to 9 for 14. The point is that the P5 is becoming more careful about not over committing itself to bowl games.

3) The ACC is the backup in both St. Pete and Birmingham. The P5 conferences are willing to accept less in the way of contractual ties and are taking a bite out of the G5's by assigning backups to P5 bowls hoping to land a nice matchup.

At least the ACC has 2 direct tie-ins with the P5. That is more than CUSA 2.0. That is the only way to reliably guarantee a matchup with the P5 I'm afraid to say.

lets face it, nobody outside of the BCS conferences are going to be happy with the bowls they end up with

(08-12-2013 05:54 PM)techdawg88 Wrote:  lets face it, nobody outside of the BCS conferences are going to be happy with the bowls they end up with

MWC seems content.

(08-12-2013 06:07 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 05:54 PM)techdawg88 Wrote:  lets face it, nobody outside of the BCS conferences are going to be happy with the bowls they end up with

MWC seems content.

do they have any choice?

(08-12-2013 01:00 PM)BullsFanInTX Wrote:  Who knows. My guess between 50-75% of the time. But we really don't have any history other than last year on how many teams a 14 team conf. will put in a bowl. The old BBVA got filled by the SEC almost all the time when selecting the 8/9 shared pick from a 12 team SEC. Ole Miss, Kentucky, and South Carolina went to 3 out of last 4 BBVA bowls (SMU was chosen as a replacement the year the SEC didn't fill it).

and dominated Pitt

(08-12-2013 05:45 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 01:14 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 01:09 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 01:00 PM)BullsFanInTX Wrote:  Who knows. My guess between 50-75% of the time. But we really don't have any history other than last year on how many teams a 14 team conf. will put in a bowl. The old BBVA got filled by the SEC almost all the time when selecting the 8/9 shared pick from a 12 team SEC. Ole Miss, Kentucky, and South Carolina went to 3 out of last 4 BBVA bowls (SMU was chosen as a replacement the year the SEC didn't fill it).

But that was before the SEC could put more than two teams into the CFP. If you go by last season's finish, the SEC had nine bowl-eligible teams, but five of them would have participated in the CFP in either the semifinals, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, or at-large. They would have left six of these tie-ins unfulfilled.

That's why i think there's still value in having a secondary tie-in to say the Liberty Bowl - as it is very likely the SEC won't have 10 teams outside the CFP to fill all their slots.

Well, here's the silver lining. As strange as it may seem---many of these lower bowls being P-5 vs P-5 actually works in favor of signing fewer primary bowl ties and more back-up ties.

No....

1) Only only the very last picks of BCS conference required a backup in the previous format. Moving from 6 conferences to 5 naturally reduces the amount of backups required.

2) Instead of the PAC signing 7 bowls for 10 teams, they are going with 8 for 12. The SEC is going from 10 bowls for 12 to 10 for 14. The B1G is going from 8 bowls for 11 to 9 for 14. The point is that the P5 is becoming more careful about not over committing itself to bowl games.

3) The ACC is the backup in both St. Pete and Birmingham. The P5 conferences are willing to accept less in the way of contractual ties and are taking a bite out of the G5's by assigning backups to P5 bowls hoping to land a nice matchup.

At least the ACC has 2 direct tie-ins with the P5. That is more than CUSA 2.0. That is the only way to reliably guarantee a matchup with the P5 I'm afraid to say.

#1--doesn't matter whether its 5 conferences or 6. The total number of AQ teams is virtually identical due to realignment (8 teams were absorbed into the P-5 replacing the 8 team Big East). The bowl requirements are the same and the number of bowls with AQ commitments is the same. Your own point #2 pretty much explains that.

#2) As for overcommitting---the SEC and ACC are both already overcommitted. The Independence Bowl has an ACC and SEC tie. Guess who played there last year---Ohio and Louisiana-Monroe. Niether conference could fill its last bowl---And that was when each conference was limited to no more than two schools in the BCS. The SEC could easily send 3 schools to the CFP.

By the way, it takes more teams to fill the new CFP than the current BCS. It takes 11 P-5 schools to fill the new one (the G-5 will provide the 12th)--but they come from 5 conferences rather than 6. That means the chances of a single conference sending 2 or more to the CFP is much higher than in the past. When all is said and done, the P-5 will have to fill ALL their current slots, plus provide 4 teams to fill the semi-finals, provide an Orange Bowl opponent, and provide an at large opponent for the G-5 entry. Theres going to be some open P-5 slots after the selection committee does its work.


#3) Right. So explain to me how often a conference with 10 ties of its own to fill is going to have extra teams for back up.

The P-5 are not being careful not to over schedule. In fact, they could care less. Its no risk to the conference at all. The risk is with the bowls. Each conference has scheduled as if they will never have a team in the playoff (which is smart, since occasionally they wont and they might need that extra slot). The fact is--once the selection committee selects 6 bowl worthy teams from the P-5 bowl qualified pool, the conferences are going to come up short filling their bowls. Plus, I haven't even factored in the effect that 9-game conference schedules are going to have on the number of bowl qualified teams coming out of the power conferences....

(08-12-2013 06:45 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The fact is--once the selection committee selects 6 bowl worthy teams from the P-5 bowl qualified pool, the conferences are going to come up short filling their bowls. Plus, I haven't even factored in the effect that 9-game conference schedules are going to have on the number of bowl qualified teams coming out of the power conferences....

I tend to agree. The SEC won't always fill their mid-tier bowl pool--in fact, I thought one of the ACC's lower-tier spots would end up as a floating backup to the pool. Actually, I thought that the Big Ten and Big 12 would be each other's backups in the Armed Forces Bowl--they're going to need them. On the other hand, there will be one year out of six where the SEC sends a team to the Advocare Bowl.

The good news for you guys is that the AAC champion is the most attractive backup on the market. The bad news is that this devalues the lower-P5 ties you do have or almost have (Military, Birmingham, Armed Forces vs Big Ten.)

Something you could realistically hope for is an arrangement with the SEC mid-tier pool, not just the Liberty Bowl. Liberty, Houston, Music City, Belk agree to take the AAC champion once in six years when the SEC is short. The bowls can probably agree among themselves who takes the AAC champion based on who it is.

(08-12-2013 06:59 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 06:45 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The fact is--once the selection committee selects 6 bowl worthy teams from the P-5 bowl qualified pool, the conferences are going to come up short filling their bowls. Plus, I haven't even factored in the effect that 9-game conference schedules are going to have on the number of bowl qualified teams coming out of the power conferences....

I tend to agree. The SEC won't always fill their mid-tier bowl pool--in fact, I thought one of the ACC's lower-tier spots would end up as a floating backup to the pool. Actually, I thought that the Big Ten and Big 12 would be each other's backups in the Armed Forces Bowl--they're going to need them. On the other hand, there will be one year out of six where the SEC sends a team to the Advocare Bowl.

The good news for you guys is that the AAC champion is the most attractive backup on the market. The bad news is that this devalues the lower-P5 ties you do have or almost have (Military, Birmingham, Armed Forces vs Big Ten.)

Something you could realistically hope for is an arrangement with the SEC mid-tier pool, not just the Liberty Bowl. Liberty, Houston, Music City, Belk agree to take the AAC champion once in six years when the SEC is short. The bowls can probably agree among themselves who takes the AAC champion based on who it is.

That's kinda what I was thinking. I was a bit broader with my thinking, but essentially, my idea was similar. I was thinking we could enter into an agreement with large pool of mid-teir and lower tier P-5 bowls to be the primary backup. The AAC #1 and #2 would be held back for that purpose. Seems like a decent insurance policy for a set of bowls that realistically can see they may have a need for a backup at some point over the next 6 years. The financial deal would have to be set up so the AAC backup gets a payout that is similar to the normal payout--or it might not be worth it for the AAC to take that risk.

(08-12-2013 07:07 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 06:59 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 06:45 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The fact is--once the selection committee selects 6 bowl worthy teams from the P-5 bowl qualified pool, the conferences are going to come up short filling their bowls. Plus, I haven't even factored in the effect that 9-game conference schedules are going to have on the number of bowl qualified teams coming out of the power conferences....

I tend to agree. The SEC won't always fill their mid-tier bowl pool--in fact, I thought one of the ACC's lower-tier spots would end up as a floating backup to the pool. Actually, I thought that the Big Ten and Big 12 would be each other's backups in the Armed Forces Bowl--they're going to need them. On the other hand, there will be one year out of six where the SEC sends a team to the Advocare Bowl.

The good news for you guys is that the AAC champion is the most attractive backup on the market. The bad news is that this devalues the lower-P5 ties you do have or almost have (Military, Birmingham, Armed Forces vs Big Ten.)

Something you could realistically hope for is an arrangement with the SEC mid-tier pool, not just the Liberty Bowl. Liberty, Houston, Music City, Belk agree to take the AAC champion once in six years when the SEC is short. The bowls can probably agree among themselves who takes the AAC champion based on who it is.

That's kinda what I was thinking. I was a bit broader with my thinking, but essentially, my idea was similar. I was thinking we could enter into an agreement with large pool of mid-teir and lower tier P-5 bowls to be the primary backup. The AAC #1 and #2 would be held back for that purpose. Seems like a decent insurance policy for a set of bowls that realistically can see they may have a need for a backup at some point over the next 6 years. The financial deal would have to be set up so the AAC backup gets a payout that is similar to the normal payout--or it might not be worth it for the AAC to take that risk.

Its a good idea in principal but what you are not understanding is the concept of a backup.

Backup Agreement: An agreement that is required by the NCAA when a conference oversigns its amount of certified bowl games.

For example, the B1G did require a backup agreement with a secondary conference for the LCPB in Detroit because it didn't with 11 teams have enough demonstrated depth to justify 8 tie-ins. Now the B1G has 8 tie-ins for 14 teams....a much easier ration to fill and therefore they don't need to have a secondary conference agreement.

I know the B1G will likely place 2-3 teams in a CFP bowl resulting in not being able to fill some of its slots BUT that does not impact normal certifying unlike the past under the 8/11 scenario.

(08-12-2013 07:17 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 07:07 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 06:59 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 06:45 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The fact is--once the selection committee selects 6 bowl worthy teams from the P-5 bowl qualified pool, the conferences are going to come up short filling their bowls. Plus, I haven't even factored in the effect that 9-game conference schedules are going to have on the number of bowl qualified teams coming out of the power conferences....

I tend to agree. The SEC won't always fill their mid-tier bowl pool--in fact, I thought one of the ACC's lower-tier spots would end up as a floating backup to the pool. Actually, I thought that the Big Ten and Big 12 would be each other's backups in the Armed Forces Bowl--they're going to need them. On the other hand, there will be one year out of six where the SEC sends a team to the Advocare Bowl.

The good news for you guys is that the AAC champion is the most attractive backup on the market. The bad news is that this devalues the lower-P5 ties you do have or almost have (Military, Birmingham, Armed Forces vs Big Ten.)

Something you could realistically hope for is an arrangement with the SEC mid-tier pool, not just the Liberty Bowl. Liberty, Houston, Music City, Belk agree to take the AAC champion once in six years when the SEC is short. The bowls can probably agree among themselves who takes the AAC champion based on who it is.

That's kinda what I was thinking. I was a bit broader with my thinking, but essentially, my idea was similar. I was thinking we could enter into an agreement with large pool of mid-teir and lower tier P-5 bowls to be the primary backup. The AAC #1 and #2 would be held back for that purpose. Seems like a decent insurance policy for a set of bowls that realistically can see they may have a need for a backup at some point over the next 6 years. The financial deal would have to be set up so the AAC backup gets a payout that is similar to the normal payout--or it might not be worth it for the AAC to take that risk.

Its a good idea in principal but what you are not understanding is the concept of a backup.

Backup Agreement: An agreement that is required by the NCAA when a conference oversigns its amount of certified bowl games.

For example, the B1G did require a backup agreement with a secondary conference for the LCPB in Detroit because it didn't with 11 teams have enough demonstrated depth to justify 8 tie-ins. Now the B1G has 8 tie-ins for 14 teams....a much easier ration to fill and therefore they don't need to have a secondary conference agreement.

I know the B1G will likely place 2-3 teams in a CFP bowl resulting in not being able to fill some of its slots BUT that does not impact normal certifying unlike the past under the 8/11 scenario.

Your talking NCAA requirements. Sure, in some cases the NCAA requires such a move. However, there is no NCAA regulation that prevents a bowl from signing an agreement with a conference to provide a team if the primary tie cant. This is a situation where I think the bowls might prefer to have a set option. Call it a secondary tie if you wish. The only other option for the AAC is to roll the dice in the "at large" market. I don't know if the conference would be willing to take that risk. My guess is that they wouldn't.

(08-12-2013 06:59 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 06:45 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The fact is--once the selection committee selects 6 bowl worthy teams from the P-5 bowl qualified pool, the conferences are going to come up short filling their bowls. Plus, I haven't even factored in the effect that 9-game conference schedules are going to have on the number of bowl qualified teams coming out of the power conferences....

I tend to agree. The SEC won't always fill their mid-tier bowl pool--in fact, I thought one of the ACC's lower-tier spots would end up as a floating backup to the pool. Actually, I thought that the Big Ten and Big 12 would be each other's backups in the Armed Forces Bowl--they're going to need them. On the other hand, there will be one year out of six where the SEC sends a team to the Advocare Bowl.

The good news for you guys is that the AAC champion is the most attractive backup on the market. The bad news is that this devalues the lower-P5 ties you do have or almost have (Military, Birmingham, Armed Forces vs Big Ten.)

Something you could realistically hope for is an arrangement with the SEC mid-tier pool, not just the Liberty Bowl. Liberty, Houston, Music City, Belk agree to take the AAC champion once in six years when the SEC is short. The bowls can probably agree among themselves who takes the AAC champion based on who it is.

I don't know if the American can get a back up tie in to a pool of bowls. The B1G, ACC, SEC are all controlling the selection of where their #3-8 go through a pooled selection. The problem is that if the SEC (or any of those others) has a year like last season, they can't even fill #7-8 of that pool. The American might be able to get a backup tie-in to the Liberty, but I can't imagine that it could get back-up tie-ins to ALL those bowls. Having the backup tie-in at a few select bowls would also help the bowls somewhat dictate to the SEC (or other P5) where they need to leave an opening.

(08-12-2013 03:27 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  We need to develop an Aresco glossary to translate ordinary English (OE) into ArescoSpeak. E.g., "will likely" in AS = "will never" in OE; "fantastic" in AS = "the pits" in OE, etc.

I think Aresco has gotten a bum rap in a lot of ways, but that's hilarious.

(08-12-2013 08:05 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 06:59 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 06:45 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The fact is--once the selection committee selects 6 bowl worthy teams from the P-5 bowl qualified pool, the conferences are going to come up short filling their bowls. Plus, I haven't even factored in the effect that 9-game conference schedules are going to have on the number of bowl qualified teams coming out of the power conferences....

I tend to agree. The SEC won't always fill their mid-tier bowl pool--in fact, I thought one of the ACC's lower-tier spots would end up as a floating backup to the pool. Actually, I thought that the Big Ten and Big 12 would be each other's backups in the Armed Forces Bowl--they're going to need them. On the other hand, there will be one year out of six where the SEC sends a team to the Advocare Bowl.

The good news for you guys is that the AAC champion is the most attractive backup on the market. The bad news is that this devalues the lower-P5 ties you do have or almost have (Military, Birmingham, Armed Forces vs Big Ten.)

Something you could realistically hope for is an arrangement with the SEC mid-tier pool, not just the Liberty Bowl. Liberty, Houston, Music City, Belk agree to take the AAC champion once in six years when the SEC is short. The bowls can probably agree among themselves who takes the AAC champion based on who it is.

I don't know if the American can get a back up tie in to a pool of bowls. The B1G, ACC, SEC are all controlling the selection of where their #3-8 go through a pooled selection. The problem is that if the SEC (or any of those others) has a year like last season, they can't even fill #7-8 of that pool. The American might be able to get a backup tie-in to the Liberty, but I can't imagine that it could get back-up tie-ins to ALL those bowls. Having the backup tie-in at a few select bowls would also help the bowls somewhat dictate to the SEC (or other P5) where they need to leave an opening.

Here's the thing---as a group, the P-5 know they have to provide 6 additional teams to the CFP (4 semis, OB opponent, G5 opponent). These conferences have 10 ties each. Where are those 6 teams going to come from. The bowls know it too. The only thing they don't know is which 2 or 3 P-5 conferences will come up short. The rest will barely fill their quota--so they are not really good backup choices. Like insurance, they have an excellent idea there will be losses and a good idea of how much the losses will be, they just don't know exactly where they will be. A pooled backup would effectively operate like old original insurance pools from long ago. Instead of protecting a barn from fire loss, they would protect a bowl from having to go from a P-5 team to mid-tier SB team.

(08-12-2013 08:05 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 06:59 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 06:45 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The fact is--once the selection committee selects 6 bowl worthy teams from the P-5 bowl qualified pool, the conferences are going to come up short filling their bowls. Plus, I haven't even factored in the effect that 9-game conference schedules are going to have on the number of bowl qualified teams coming out of the power conferences....

I tend to agree. The SEC won't always fill their mid-tier bowl pool--in fact, I thought one of the ACC's lower-tier spots would end up as a floating backup to the pool. Actually, I thought that the Big Ten and Big 12 would be each other's backups in the Armed Forces Bowl--they're going to need them. On the other hand, there will be one year out of six where the SEC sends a team to the Advocare Bowl.

The good news for you guys is that the AAC champion is the most attractive backup on the market. The bad news is that this devalues the lower-P5 ties you do have or almost have (Military, Birmingham, Armed Forces vs Big Ten.)

Something you could realistically hope for is an arrangement with the SEC mid-tier pool, not just the Liberty Bowl. Liberty, Houston, Music City, Belk agree to take the AAC champion once in six years when the SEC is short. The bowls can probably agree among themselves who takes the AAC champion based on who it is.

I don't know if the American can get a back up tie in to a pool of bowls. The B1G, ACC, SEC are all controlling the selection of where their #3-8 go through a pooled selection. The problem is that if the SEC (or any of those others) has a year like last season, they can't even fill #7-8 of that pool. The American might be able to get a backup tie-in to the Liberty, but I can't imagine that it could get back-up tie-ins to ALL those bowls. Having the backup tie-in at a few select bowls would also help the bowls somewhat dictate to the SEC (or other P5) where they need to leave an opening.

What I'm suggesting is a deal with either the SEC pool as a whole, or several of the bowls. Let's say that Liberty and Belk are the lowest-paying bowls in the pool, so they'd be the ones the SEC tells to lump it. Liberty, Belk and AAC make a deal that if the SEC is short one school, and the AAC champ is from the western division, Liberty takes the AAC champ. If the AAC champ is from the eastern division, Belk takes the AAC champ. Maybe you bring the Music City Bowl in, and they get the AAC champ if Liberty and Belk have already taken their turn.

IT depends how the SEC bowl pool contracts handle the SEC not having enough teams.

(08-12-2013 07:07 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 06:59 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(08-12-2013 06:45 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The fact is--once the selection committee selects 6 bowl worthy teams from the P-5 bowl qualified pool, the conferences are going to come up short filling their bowls. Plus, I haven't even factored in the effect that 9-game conference schedules are going to have on the number of bowl qualified teams coming out of the power conferences....

I tend to agree. The SEC won't always fill their mid-tier bowl pool--in fact, I thought one of the ACC's lower-tier spots would end up as a floating backup to the pool. Actually, I thought that the Big Ten and Big 12 would be each other's backups in the Armed Forces Bowl--they're going to need them. On the other hand, there will be one year out of six where the SEC sends a team to the Advocare Bowl.

The good news for you guys is that the AAC champion is the most attractive backup on the market. The bad news is that this devalues the lower-P5 ties you do have or almost have (Military, Birmingham, Armed Forces vs Big Ten.)

Something you could realistically hope for is an arrangement with the SEC mid-tier pool, not just the Liberty Bowl. Liberty, Houston, Music City, Belk agree to take the AAC champion once in six years when the SEC is short. The bowls can probably agree among themselves who takes the AAC champion based on who it is.

That's kinda what I was thinking. I was a bit broader with my thinking, but essentially, my idea was similar. I was thinking we could enter into an agreement with large pool of mid-teir and lower tier P-5 bowls to be the primary backup. The AAC #1 and #2 would be held back for that purpose. Seems like a decent insurance policy for a set of bowls that realistically can see they may have a need for a backup at some point over the next 6 years. The financial deal would have to be set up so the AAC backup gets a payout that is similar to the normal payout--or it might not be worth it for the AAC to take that risk.

What other bowls were you thinking of, though? The SEC bowl pool matches your footprint pretty well, and they're better bowls than the non-SEC bowls that are likely to need a backup sometime.

Also, the more bowls you're a backup to, the less valuable you are as a backup. Let's say the AAC champ is signed to back up the SEC in the Liberty Bowl, and the PAC/XII in the Buffalo Wild Winds bowl. If BWW needs a backup to their backup because the AAC champ is playing in the Liberty Bowl, they're a lot less likely to sign in the first place.

The SEC mid-tier bowl pool gets the AAC a variety of bowls and opponents, while only being "on call" for one conference's shortage.