Chop Florida Off the Map

(Thanks Tenacious D for that holiday lyric and Willy Volk for the image.)

While the Gators are down in New Orleans so as not to lose the all-important twelfth conference team.

At this point, I’m boiling enough to write off the entire bowl system because of the shenanigans that state pulls. The BCS is a wretched enough system. Try explaining to a foreigner that in American football, we’re able to disregard what happens on the field and simply vote on who think is best. It’s a confusing concept to sports fans.

But then the lower tier bowls, which are bound to follow certain rules in the same way countries are bound by United Nations' actions, continue to make a mockery of an all ready weak system. Half of Florida’s bowls are not under contention. That’s because no one cares about the St. Petersburg Bowl, not even the teams playing in it (UCF and Rutgers, for the record. (Actually, Golden Knights v Scarlet Knights does hold some mascot enjoyment), and the Citrus Champs Bowl starring Miami and Wisconsin might be a decent game.

However, that means I call shenanigans on the other half.

A brief time out to explain how the bowl system works. Each bowl has a tie-in with two conferences. Each bowl also sports a certain amount of prestige. A rule of thumb is the closer to New Year’s, the better the bowl, although these days that’s not absolute. For example, the SEC tie-ins in order of desirability (which is primarily based on how much the bows pays each team for attending) are: Nokia Sugar, Capital One Citrus, Outback Hall of Fame, Chick-fil-A Peach, AT&T Cotton, AutoZone Liberty, Gaylord Hotels Music City, Petro Sun Independence, Papa John’s.com Birmingham. Though there are some further divisional tie-ins, this is the order in which each bowl selects the team that will appear in their game. They’re supposed to pick by win/loss record, with a little wiggle room (that is, if they really, really want to, they could pick an 8-4 team over a 9-3 team, but not a 7-5 over a 9-3).

Tennessee was the first to get screwed by a Florida bowl. As the runners-up in the East, they were supposed to be invited to the Outback. Auburn got the nod instead. Despite a slightly smaller payout, this actually works in UT’s favor. Playing in prime time on New Year’s Eve is way preferable in terms of national viewing audience than at 10:00a on New Year’s Day. And the Peach Bowl has a tie-in with the ACC, meaning UT will face off against VTech, which is a match-up we’ve been chomping at the bit for years, and the Hokies are a higher quality opponent than any Big 10 team that the Outback is obligated to pick (in this case, Northwestern).

What gets the goat is the reason the Outback picked the way it did. Sure, Tennessee’s been there twice in the past three years and we like to keep the teams rotating. But an even bigger reason was a bidding guarantee. The Outback went to Tennessee’s athletic director with the promise of an invite if Mike Hamilton promised to sell 30,000 tickets. Hamilton refused. Not because Vol fans won’t travel—trust me, we will-- but because IT’S AGAINST THE RULES FOR BOWLS TO DO THAT. Auburn’s AD obviously has no compunction in this department.

I’m a forgiving girl, though, so no harm, no foul.

The same cannot be said for the Kinoka Monolta Gator Bowl. They have third pick, after the ACC champion goes to a BCS bowl (ie- the Orange) and the next best team is shuffled off the Peach. Peach took Virginia Tech, so Gator should have taken 9-3 Miami. They even could have selected Boston College or UNC, both at 8-4. Instead, they scraped all the way down to barely eligible, 6-6 Florida State.

Why? Bobby Bowden, ousted FSU coach, spent time at West Virginia, the Big East team slated to play in Jacksonville. Of course it will be uber-thrilling to watch his old school beat up his current school at his last game. I’d much rather see that than an actual contest between the Mountaineers and the ‘Canes. It’s not like one of the BCS bowls has all ready been ruined by a TCU/Boise State match-up.

As against the rules as forcing a ticket guarantee, there’s no physical evidence such an event occurred. All the evidence we need to convict the Gator Bowl is right there on Wikipedia: their picking order and the conference standings. I guess they figured they could give the ACC the finger since this is the last year of their contract. Pity.

Where’s Mike Slive when you need him?