(08-09-2019 11:40 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote: Out of curiosity, I did some research to find out how many bowl games have been played between schools in the same conference. I found 15, counting the BCS/CFP Championship.
Ole Miss has been involved in 6 of them, and the Gator Bowl in 5. Let me know if I missed any!
Three of the last four were #1 vs #2 National Championship games:
Orange '79: Oklahoma vs Nebraska
BCS Championship '12: Alabama vs LSU
CFP Championship '18: Alabama vs Georgia
The SEC Games from 1960 to 1972 was in an era where only 6 conference games were played an it was not a rematch. SEC schools did not play 3 of the other 9 schools, some of them they'd only play twice in a decade if ever. So such Bowl games made sense.
But the 1960 (1959 season) match up between #3 Ole' Miss and #2 Tennessee rematch was part of the Championship battle as #1 Syracuse played #4 Texas in the Cotton Bowl and won, finishing 10-0 and National Champion. Had Texas won, the winner of the Sugar Bowl would have had a good chance of being National Champion equaling the 1 loss of Syracuse and Texas -- that year screamed for a playoff. So in my book the January 1st 1960 Sugar Bowl belongs on those NCG list of games above.
It would not surprise me if you did see a SEC vs SEC or B1G vs B1G or ACC vs ACC Bowls in the future. If you only play 8, and don't play 5 then playing a cross division conference mate you are not playing otherwise in a 4 year cycle is not a stretch. If the B1G expands to 16 (say the OU & KU scenario -as an example only-) then a West Division school will not play 6 of the East schools and vice versa. So a Nebraska vs Ohio State Bowl game is not out of the question.
But Bowls tend to want schools from separate conferences, and the bigger ones want at least one very large school traveling a long distance to bring fans into the town. So we may not see many of these. Also conference tie-in preclude in-conference match ups. So it's still likely mostly a legacy of the distant past, except in championship games.