per CBS:
Iowa Kirk Ferentz values the bowl system but wonders if 7-5 teams should be the cutoff for eligibility, the Hawkeyes coach said Tuesday.
The bowl system will expand to 40 games (or 78 teams awith the playoff championship game featuring semifinalists) by 2015. That means more than 60 percent of the 128-team FBS field will be eligible.
"You could argue that, certainly...That's a discussion," said Ferentz of a 7-5 cutoff line. "We didn't go in 2007. We were 6-6, bowl eligible. I had no argument. To me we were bowl-eligible and not bowl worthy. No sour grapes on my part. You get what you deserve."
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefoo...-5-bowl-eligibility-cutoff-worth-a-discussion
Go Gophers!!
I never realized that Iowa didn't get invited to a bowl that year. How often does a bowl eligible major conference team not get invited to a bowl? Moreover, how often does a bowl pick Indiana over Iowa? I notice that 10 of 11 Big Ten teams were bowl eligible that year (everyone except us), so I suppose maybe it just happens when you have a bunch of 6- and 7-win major conference teams, leading to having a whole bunch of mediocre bowl eligible teams and not enough bowl spots to take them.
It amazes me that year after year there is someone lining up to start a new bowl game or take over the sponsorship of an existing one. They must be making money which keeps the sponsors around and ensures the system won't change anytime soon.
Personally I would love to see a 7-5 cutoff but as others mentioned it will never happen because there would not be enough teams to fill all the worthless bowl matchups. Going to a bowl game at 6-6 is a joke and frankly if I had it my way you would only be bowl eligible if you finished .500 or better within your own conference. If you can't go .500 in your own league you don't deserve a post season reward. But the system is what it is and until sponsors stop supporting the games it will continue to be a reward teams for just not finishing with a losing record in many cases.
Requiring teams to be .500 or better in conference to be bowl eligible would pretty much reward teams who play in bad conferences, while punishing teams who play in good conferences. For instance, just this past bowl season, going by this criterion, Arizona, Ole Miss, Maryland, Oregon State, Pitt, Michigan, and Washington State would not have been bowl eligible, and could have been replaced by other bowl eligible teams like Toledo, Central Michigan, Troy, South Alabama, Louisiana-Monroe, San Jose State, and Florida Atlantic, all of whom went .500 or better both in their conference and overall, none of whom went to bowl games. And maybe you'd be fine with that, like if you wanted to see more of the smaller schools get a chance to play on a bigger stage.
Then there's also the fact that some conferences play 9 conference games while others play 8, while still others only play 7, so 4-5 in conference won't get you into a bowl game in a 9 game league, but 4-4 will in an 8 game league, leading to potential situations where a 6-win team (2013 North Carolina, 6-6, 4-4 ACC) is bowl eligible while a 7-win team (2013 Arizona, 7-5, 4-5 Pac-12) is not.
Even a 7-5 cutoff might just mean that instead of removing meaningless bowl games, we're just watching Texas-San Antonio, Western Kentucky, and Toledo instead of Pitt, Syracuse, and Washington State.
