Deputy Travis Junior said:

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nbaker2022 said:

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I'm feeling that big time. I used to absolutely love bowl season, and it's just not the same anymore. I understand why players opt out, personally I don't blame them at all. But also I miss those non-playoff games like the Rose Bowl where both teams would sell out to win, simply because winning the Rose Bowl was a big deal.

Thankfully we're gonna have a 12 team playoff to watch in the next few years though.

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I know your pain. The first time I visited Las Vegas in my early 20s, I thought I'd found the last vacation destination I'd ever need. The lights, the energy, the food, the games, the shows... It was all magical. However, 5-6 visits later the old charms had no impact on me; it looked more and more like drunk people and noise. I thought I didn't have my head in the right place and engaged in all manner of bad decisions to try to recapture the magic, which culminated in a drunken prostitute hookup in a grimy alley while another to whom I'd paid a benji filmed the whole thing. But even that did nothing: afterward all I had was more emptiness and some nasty VD. Similarly, even if the bowl season reverted to your vision of its platonic ideal, you'd find the whole thing far less enjoyable.

My advice is to vigorously pursue hobbies. Using the 10k hour rule as a rough guide for when they'll begin to lose all meaning to you, a good hobby should give you 15-20 years of enjoyment. That means you only have to see 3-4 hobbies through to mastery before the end comes and you assume your place in the cold nothingness that waits beyond.

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not as colorful a story but this was six flags for me in 6th grade.

AgDotCom said:

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VaTech getting blown out by Maryland 47-10 early 4th quarter. VaTech fired their coach, then 7-8 opt outs on top of that.

Maryland: Zero opt outs.

It's gotten to the point that only winning programs in prestigious bowls (and no reason to fire their coach) will be the only bowls worth playing.

All other bowls have become garbage.

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this is very true.

the winner of the game is determined first & foremost by opt outs and coaching stability (or instability)

AWP 97 said:

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I don't understand why people care if two teams play in a bowl game that they don't care about. If you don't watch it or they eliminate it, why does it matter. Eliminating bowls doesn't make the other bowl games better.

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Yeah I've never gotten it. Just don't watch if you're not interested. As a football fan, what difference is there between the game not being played and you just not watching it? How does it affect you if some game you don't care about gets played while you are busy doing whatever it is you would rather be doing instead of watching a lesser bowl game?

I don't care about the NBA or the NHL, I never watch a minute of those games. I have never been bothered about the fact that someone is televising games I'm not interested in watching. I just don't watch, and boom, zero effect on my life. The people who enjoy it can watch, how would I benefit from them not having that option?

AWP 97 said:

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I don't understand why people care if two teams play in a bowl game that they don't care about. If you don't watch it or they eliminate it, why does it matter. Eliminating bowls doesn't make the other bowl games better.

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I haven't been watching.

Been a fun bowl season and I only expect it to get better as the weekend goes on.

Yall are all acting as if early bowl games in season's past were like NY6 games every day. Stop with the revisionist history. The moment the talent level has gone up a tick the games have improved as they always do.

Clemson v Iowa St was a good game. Had fun watching the track meet last night and the Stoops story.

For the opt outs crowd... USCe had opt outs + was a 13 point dog at kickoff and dominated unc outright.

Purdue is dealing with covid + opt outs of their top 2 players. UT has injuries + 1 opt out. UT 7.5 point favorites and Purdue has scored 16 straight to take the lead right before half.

If you aren't entertained by that then you probably kick babies then get annoyed when they cry.

One good thing about this bowl season - the Rose Bowl can't act like their game is the premier college football game of the season. It's a matchup between a Big 10 division runner up and a dismal Pac 12 championship game upset winner.

One of the worst games on January 1, no matter how much they pimp it as the highlight of the season.

Viewership of bowl games: totally optional.
Aggravation over number of bowls: totally optional.
ESPN changing profitable bowl season format: not happening

Boy that UT/Purdue game was so bad, nobody was even watching or commenting on it. Just background holiday fodder on mute. Ratings shouldn't really matter.

No social media interaction either. Another deflating bowl game

Titan83 said:

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Viewership of bowl games: totally optional.
Aggravation over number of bowls: totally optional.
ESPN changing profitable bowl season format: not happening

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The Zoo collectively spending thousands of hours crafting and reacting to improved playoff proposals that will never make it before the actual NCAA/ESPN decision makers.... totally happening.

I like how people pretend there's some perfect playoff scenario that won't cause them to whine about the matchups and who got left out.

Harry Lime said:

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I like how people pretend there's some perfect playoff scenario that won't cause them to whine about the matchups and who got left out.

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Music to my ears...

Friday night, I'm looking forward to watching Kirby Smart's hold back guy, who's hanging on to Kirby's waistband. He's one of Georgia's most skilled and highly trained assistants.

Wonder how many future late draft / free agent guys opt out? I can understand first round guys opting out (though I hate to see it).

How many guys does it actually matter for?

Ag Tag said:

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Friday night, I'm looking forward to watching Kirby Smart's hold back guy, who's hanging on to Kirby's waistband. He's one of Georgia's most skilled and highly trained assistants.

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"Hold back guy". Lol laughable 21st century concept. What happened to coaches actually exercising some self control?

Y'know, like Woody Hayes.

Harry Lime said:

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I like how people pretend there's some perfect playoff scenario that won't cause them to whine about the matchups and who got left out.

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As soon as I see the words "Conference Champion auto...." - I stop reading and just hear:

Automatic invites to conference champions definitely are meaningless in the 68 team Div I MBB tournament…the key issue is balancing of schedules. I do think best 12 would catch some stinkers, too, so it's worth suggesting the real question is how often we have to hold our collective noses.

But I, too, start rolling my eyes at the thoughtlessness of the auto-bid crowd. It's like they don't even want to try to argue their position…

How much did most bowl games ever matter anyway? Who outside of Aggie fans, players and their families, and our opponents cared when we played in games like the galleryfurniture bowl 20 years ago? As for opt-outs, it gives backups an opportunity to make a name for themselves.

Maybe relax and enjoy it for what it is, bonus football

greg.w.h said:

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But I, too, start rolling my eyes at the thoughtlessness of the auto-bid crowd. It's like they don't even want to try to argue their position…

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It's as if they totally forgot all the horrible conference champs who got into the BCS bowls. In the short history of the BCS, here are all the teams that got in ranked #15 or lower (including TWO unranked teams):

1998
No. 15 Syracuse (Big East champion)

1999
No. 22 Stanford (Pac-10 champion)

2000
No. 17 Purdue (Big Ten champion)

2004
No. 21 Pittsburgh (Big East champion)

2005
No. 22 Florida State (ACC champion)

2008
No. 19 Virginia Tech (ACC champion)

2010
UR Connecticut (Big East champion)

2011
No. 23 West Virginia (Big East champion)
No. 15 Clemson (ACC champion)

2012
UR Wisconsin (Big Ten champion)
No. 15 Northern Illinois (MAC champion, Automatic non-AQ)
No. 21 Louisville (Big East champion)

2013
No. 15 UCF (American Athletic Conference champion)