(04-14-2020 03:54 PM)46566 Wrote: What would you guys want if you guys could tweak bowl eligibility? For me make all FCS playable by removing the scholarship limit. That basically frees up schools to play the Ivy,NEC, Pioneer schools and Georgetown in football. Tied to that though any team with similar record regardless of conference affiliation who played all FBS teams will get into a bowl ahead of a team who played a FCS team. Basically a 7-5 Sun Belt team who played all FBS team will get in a bowl ahead of a 7-5 SEC team who played a FCS team.
Another would be each conference can have 3 guaranteed bowl berths a year not counting the New year 6 bowls and playoffs.
I like the first idea. FCS is D1 so I don't understand the bias in bowl eligibility against FCS. It's a sub-division, not a separate division. Of course, there could be costs to that for FBS teams seeking to rise in CFP rankings, as FCS games would hurt their SOS, but if they are willing to suffer that, their choice.
The second idea (in bold) doesn't make sense to me on two counts: First, it contradicts the point about not penalizing FBS schools for playing FCS. You're going to let them count all FCS wins towards bowl eligibility but then turn around and say you will be ranked behind teams that don't? That cancels out the incentive of the first idea.
Also, the "regardless of conference affiliation" makes no sense, because it ignores the market for bowls, which is conference-based. Bowls and conferences mutually agree on ties, that's how it should be. And, it ignores overall SOS. That is, a 7-5 SEC team with two FCS wins might have played a harder schedule than the 7-5 Sun Belt team that played none, so there's no basis for prioritizing the latter over the former.
Finally, why limit each conference to 3 guaranteed bowl berths? Again, that is something best left to the conferences themselves. As someone else said, all conferences have a minimum of 5 ties anyway, so what's the point of creating more uncertainty by forcing so many more "at large" slots? Bowls sure wouldn't like it. They want certainty at the conference level.
Conferences wouldn't either, because one thing conferences try to do is create matchups with other conferences that their fans have more of a natural interest in. E.g., the B1G and SEC have several bowl ties together because there is a common interest in that kind of north-south combat. Bowls too want to match conferences in their games that draw interest, like having a local "anchor" conference matched vs a distant conference that the locals don't get to see much of in person and that also draws in out-of-town visitors and their money.