EDITORIAL: What's next for football?
But where does this leave teams with neither a winning nor losing record?
This is the place that Central Michigan football currently finds itself for the second year in a row: 6-6 and counting on a Northern Illinois Bowl Championship Series appearance.
As of Sunday, there are 78 teams that are bowl eligible, with three other FBS teams still in the hunt at 5-6. What's troubling for college football and the argument of a postseason for winning teams is allowing a .500 level program to partake in a bowl game. Are they undeserving?
With one of the easiest schedules in the Mid American Conference, CMU still managed to finish 6-6, with its only signature win coming against a disappointing Ohio team.
CMU was 3-6 before it entered one of the easiest stretches of any schedule in the land, playing lowly Western Michigan (1-11), UMass (1-11) and Eastern Michigan (2-10). That's not to take anything away from the team, however, which soundly beat UMass and EMU at home and edged out a win against the Broncos on the road, as they were supposed to.
It does, however, speak to the ease of CMU's schedule. The Chippewas resume might be the weakest of any bowl-eligible team, and that's saying a lot considering there are 78 currently eligible, 12 sitting at 6-6.
While head coach Dan Enos and co. should accept any bowl offer that comes their way, the fact that CMU and other 6-6 teams are even being considered for a bowl game is a joke.
There are 35 bowl games every year, which leaves only 70 spots open for prospective programs. Out of the current 78 bowl eligible teams, 12 of them are 6-6. That means at least four sub par teams will get to travel, play on national television and bring money to their respective athletics programs.
And that, is what it all boils down to. There really is no need for 35 bowl games, but when advertisers have the money to slap their names across a three-hour event, then there is no argument.
Sure, an extra game means a lot more to a team full of athletes who have dedicated their summers and falls to one goal. But at what point do all these bowl games become participation trophies?
Only a handful of games are still in important when it comes to bowling: The BCS bowl games. Those games are what separates the big boys from the rest.
Next year's college football playoff system, which will pit the top four ranked teams in the country against each other, will leave the remaining games to become even more meaningless. The NCAA, if it truly wishes to put quality of play ahead of money, should use the upcoming offseason as a way to re-evaluate the bowl system and reform it for the better so that 6-6 and even 7-5 teams would be left out.
Otherwise, bowl season will become about determining who is the best of the mediocre, nothing else.
