(12-27-2020 09:56 AM)pvtlamb Wrote: In the past, one of the interesting things for me during bowl season was watching P5 teams vs other.
It seems to me that this year, more than the past, most of the non-P5 bowl teams are playing each other.
Is this because of COVID or something else?
The only exceptions are Tulsa-Miss State, Cincy-Georgia and maybe BYU-UCF*.
Am I not remembering accurately, or is this a manifestation of Mack Brown's suggestion of the G5 teams having their own playoff?
I look forward to mostly astute observations.
In a "normal" year, there should be about six or seven bowls matching up so-called "P5" vs so-called "G5"
- the NY6 slot for the highest CFP committee ranked champion of a non-contract-bowl conference will be against a contract-bowl-conference team
- mwc Champion bowl slot should be against Pac12 - Las Vegas Bowl for years, LA Bowl was supposed to start this year.
- AAC Military Bowl slot vs ACC
- AAC vs ACC Fenway was supposed to start this year
- Armed Forces Bowl should be vs BigXII
- Birmingham Bowl should be vs SEC
- Gasparilla Bowl
- Army/BYU/rando could get a Pac12 in Independence Bowl
There are set backup deals in place -- e.g. mwc has a backup to the Cactus Bowl and that's how Air Force had Washington State last year -- and there is often horsetrading.
This year, some of those were early cancellations due to locations: LA Bowl, Fenway Bowl, etc.
In general those bowls are low on the pecking order for the contract-bowl conferences, so when they're out of eligible teams, those bowls shift to backup deals, and for the non-contract-bowl conferences, they get another non-contract-bowl opponent.
This year with no eligibility minima, the initial expected effect was that the contract-bowl conferences would fill ALL their slots. Good news if you thought you would get a "name" opponent for your conference; bad news if you were hoping to catch "extra" slots or backup deals.
Then teams started opting out - we started getting even MORE beautiful chaos than normal, and it was post-selection Sunday!
Those opt-outs came at the lower end of the pecking order and led to cancellations. Gasparilla CUSA vs South Carolina; Military Bowl cancelled; Pac12 (and rumors of Boise?) caused Independence Bowl cancellation, but Army fell upwards into the Liberty Bowl vs WVU when Tennessee got the cooties.
* Don't call BYU "P5." Notre Dame has a separate seat at the CFP in table; BYU doesn't. Notre Dame is in fact a contract-bowl team even in "normal" years with a piece of the Orange Bowl. Notre Dame gets a $3 million payout even without appearing in a CFP game; BYU gets $300k just like Army and UMass and NMSU and Liberty.