Bear Down Wildcats

Not sure how the selections go but if there is any choice for the schools of the available bowls it won't be Arizona. For recruiting I am really hoping for one of the Texas games.

Probably not this year but a possibility of bowls going dark in the future. Basically if there aren't enough eligible teams then some bowls could be suspended for that year. Although that could cause 5-6 teams to be left out too

http://mweb.cbssports.com/ncaaf/writer/ ... -6-6-teams" target="_blank

PHXCATS wrote:Not sure how the selections go but if there is any choice for the schools of the available bowls it won't be Arizona. For recruiting I am really hoping for one of the Texas games.

So a handful of bowl committees are going to plan for and prepare to host a bowl, and incur all the costs associated with such, and then find out at season's end (weeks before the game is to be played) that Thor bowl will be cancelled? Talk about a waste of time and money....

If this does not underscore the fact there has been a proliferation of too many bowls, then I do not know what will. This is just inane.

Many feel that the NIT is overkill and should be discontinued, and no one I know thinks the CBIT should exist. Even with those 2 tournaments in addition to the NCAA, 116 teams (out of 351 available) end up participating in post season play. By contrast, 80 out of 128 FBS teams participate in bowl games.

There should be no more than 32 bowls, which would allow 1/2 of all teams to participate - and the 8 bowls that would be eliminated are ones that would not be missed. I would prefer about 25... But at least 32 would ensure that only teams 0.500 or better play. In either case, maybe BCS conference schools that aren't gunning for the playoff will have an incentive NOT to schedule only cream puffs in the OOC schedule, as compared to the current "any way to just get 6 wins" environment. Not all 6-6 teams are created equal.

Basketball rewards scheduling good competition, while the bowl system punishes it. This system is broken, the value of a bowl is completely diluted, and there are much easier ways to fix it than to suspend the lowest tier bowls at the last minutes. Cancel them altogether.

I agree. 32 bowls are best. Basically means that you have to be 6-6 as a power team or 7-5 as a group of 5 team to bowl.

PHXCATS wrote:Not sure how the selections go but if there is any choice for the schools of the available bowls it won't be Arizona. For recruiting I am really hoping for one of the Texas games.

Maybe so, but I don't see it. I doubt that many (any?) of the recruits in Texas who would move the needle are going to be paying attention to some bowl game facing 6-6 teams, and they certainly aren't going to the game.

If they are interested in the program, they can watch the game on TV regardless of where it is played.

I suppose some may point to our recruiting in Louisiana as evidence that our Independence Bowl game had a positive impact. Maybe so. But in most of the cases, I think that being the biggest name program to offer them, and in some cases the only BCS program, was the reason.... Meaning we would have gotten those kids whether we played in that bowl game or not.

I'm sure there will be a couple new bowls next year.

Looks like we could get bent over:

UAEebs86 wrote:Looks like we could get bent over:

Nope.

All teams eligible for postseason play and reaching six victories will be selected.

I read something somewhere that geography will play a big part in where 5-7 teams will play. I also read that Missouri won't play in a bowl game if offered.

UAEebs86 wrote:Looks like we could get bent over:

Yep.

If a 5-7 team from the Big 12, for instance, guaranteed one of the Texas Bowls that they would purchase 30,000 tickets they would most
certainly have a much better chance of being selected over poor, old U of A. Money doesn't talk, it SCREAMS.

dmjcat wrote:

UAEebs86 wrote:Looks like we could get bent over:

Yep.

If a 5-7 team from the Big 12, for instance, guaranteed one of the Texas Bowls that they would purchase 30,000 tickets they would most
certainly have a much better chance of being selected over poor, old U of A. Money doesn't talk, it SCREAMS.

Except that no 5-7 team can be taken over a 6-6 team. Period. No matter how many tickets are or are not bought.

dmjcat wrote:

UAEebs86 wrote:Looks like we could get bent over:

Yep.

If a 5-7 team from the Big 12, for instance, guaranteed one of the Texas Bowls that they would purchase 30,000 tickets they would most
certainly have a much better chance of being selected over poor, old U of A. Money doesn't talk, it SCREAMS.

Yes, yes it does. Which is why there are more bowls spots available than teams with 0.500 records.

We went 3-6 in conference, beat an FCS team, and two lower division FBS teams that were 9-15 on the season. We are in a bowl game, and while it would be unfair to be passed over for a better bowl game by a team with a losing record - it is splitting hairs.

The outrage!!

Bowl system primarily about money. And to think the NCAA, universities, TV Networks and sponsors tried to disguise it as primarily something else...

(capital one, taxslayer, Allstate, chik-fil-a, Hyundai, outback, motel 6). I Should have recognized when all the above lobbied so hard that the current playoff system ensure that the "Bowl System" Tradition (for the players you know) stay intact.

Yea, it's pretty obvious.

EDIT: btw, RR's recent contract amendment dramatically changed how much bonus he gets for Bowl participation. Went from non-major, non-cfp bowl bonus of $175k down to $25k for 3 conference wins and 3 non-conference wins against FCS and two non-power 5's. Two of AZ's 6 wins came against teams with winning records (NAU, Utah). Combined record of teams AZ beat, 31-41.

But, in exchange he gets a nice big check this coming March.

Lots and lots of these bowl predictors settling at Arizona going to either the Arizona or New Mexico. Gosh I don't want to do the New Mexico again. At least with AZ I'll be in town and can attend the game.

UA AD is going to lose money on whatever bowl they get selected for with travel costs and required ticket purchases. That's why some schools with non-sharing conferences decline bowl bids. Sonny Dykes declined a bowl bid when he was at LA Tech. Fortunately for the UA the PAC shares revenue from major bowl games.


Missouri is declining at 5-7 and the Illini may also.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/co ... story.html" target="_blank

Nebraska has the highest APR among five-win teams at 985, followed by Kansas State (976), Missouri (976), Minnesota (975), San Jose State (975), Illinois (973) and Rice (973). Kansas State can finish 6-6 with a win Saturday against West Virginia, while Missouri announced Monday it would decline any bowl invitation.

Nebraska k state and Minnesota will probably accept bids

CatsbyAZ wrote:Lots and lots of these bowl predictors settling at Arizona going to either the Arizona or New Mexico. Gosh I don't want to do the New Mexico again. At least with AZ I'll be in town and can attend the game.

NM Bowl - AZ vs. NM would be the likely matchup if that happened. Would be a great draw for the locals there and the two schools have a history, not just from the WAC but from 07-08 when NM beat the Cats twice in a row.

The one I keep seeing popping up is Arizona in the Independence Bowl. Last prediction I saw was Arizona against Virginia Tech. After the RR to VT rumors that would make for an interesting matchup.

Poinsettia please.

Poinsettia is likely not happening unless there's a ton of horse trading. It has to be something that all parties agree to, including the bowls, the conferences and the teams, so there's got to be something good in it for everyone for Arizona to find their way there. That said, Arizona would be a good draw for them.

New mexico is the worst bowl out there, we'll maybe the potato one is worse. Heart of Dallas is right after xmas. None of these will bring fans so I hope they have exciting experiences for the players.

Nm bowl has an awful stadium with colder weather and not sure the few fans that made it last time will make the trip again. That stadium was pretty empty last time so the ad will have to eat more tickets.

The two bowls that would draw Arizona fans are Poinsettia and Arizona Bowl. Those are on the least likely list. As I said before, a AZ-NM matchup in the NM bowl would be a good matchup for bowl ticket sales. It however has one of the lowest payouts available. Heart of Dallas is $1.1 million per team which is the highest of the likely bowls. Armed Forces is $675k. New Mexico is $456k. I do think Byrne knows what he wants and is good at working with the movers and shakers, so we'll see what we get. If it's NM I want to make it this time. Last time my schedule conspired against me on that one. However, of the most likely of the bowls listed, none of them will draw people from Tucson in big numbers so any of them will mean the AD eats tickets.

Can always just buy tickets in support of the program.

If the nm bowl is AZ/unm then it'll probably have a lot of tickets sold. We'd basically just be playing a true non conference road game at new Mexico

Dallas would be fun if you could fly into Dallas by game time. What history at the cotton bowl

azcat49 wrote:Can always just buy tickets in support of the program.

I'd prefer to donate an equivalent amount directly... They should have clear visibility on how much they lose by participating in these lower tier bowl games.

Then maybe it can fixed, one way or another. Schools losing money so somebody else can make it is inane.

We don't lose money with revenue sharing.

ASUHATER! wrote:We don't lose money with revenue sharing.

Just less money to share with 7 PAC teams going to money losing bowls. Have to have the 3 money making bowls cover all those expenses.

Merkin wrote:

ASUHATER! wrote:We don't lose money with revenue sharing.

Just less money to share with 7 PAC teams going to money losing bowls. Have to have the 3 money making bowls cover all those expenses.

Exactly... We'd be making MORE money if we did NOT go to a bowl game.

Which = going to a bowl game loses money.

Going to a bowl is always better than not going to one. Period. I don't get why so many fans are so against wanting to see Arizona play another game.

Getting the extra month of practice is why going to a bowl is good. The coaches are all for it.

Merkin wrote:

ASUHATER! wrote:We don't lose money with revenue sharing.

Just less money to share with 7 PAC teams going to money losing bowls. Have to have the 3 money making bowls cover all those expenses.

Haven't done the math lately, but I think it's less an issue now with the playoff system in place. Each Power 5 conference gets $51 million this year from CFPlayoff whether they have a team in playoffs or not.

If Stanford makes semi's another $6 million bonus. If in NY Big Six bowl, $4 million bonus (plus expenses $2 Million). Then the other Bowl payouts. CFPlayoff money doubled the millions over BCS. Also some loose change $300k/school if meets APR. Lot's of $$$ floating.

ASUHATER! wrote:Going to a bowl is always better than not going to one. Period. I don't get why so many fans are so against wanting to see Arizona play another game.

I'm OK with a bowl game. Great for the seniors and the extra practices for the underclassmen. Just having to realize it's not a money making opportunity for the AD.

This is from 2011, but still relevant:

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/c ... 50582512/1" target="_blank


Trips to BCS bowl games can cost some schools big money

Along with a 40-12 drubbing from Stanford, Virginia Tech's athletic department reported a $421,046 loss. The cost to play in the Orange Bowl, largely based on terms set by the Bowl Championship Series, outstripped the amount of bowl money the team received.

Virginia Tech, which receives millions of dollars in public funding like many other college sports programs, would have lost even more money had the Atlantic Coast Conference not spent nearly $1.2 million to help. The team, required to buy a block of tickets as a condition of being in the bowl, was unable to resell all of them before game time; the school's conference bought out 9,500 remaining seats.

As long as the money is repaid through revenue sharing I couldn't care less how much money is lost. Bowls are good for teams and players and are good TV during the holidays. 40 is about 5-10 too many but they are good.

Just did some rough math on Bowl Payouts and the Pac12: (Math not my forte')

10 P12 teams qualified
seven contracted P12 Bowls
Three additional to meet the 10 that qualified
I assumed Stanford would make at least a NYE Big 6 Bowl
Used Stewart Mandel's Bowl Projections
Did Not include expense payouts
Did not include Pac 12 bowl ticket reimbursement policy

$51 million Pac-12 cut CFPlayoff
$3 Million Pac-12 cut for meeting APR (assumed all 10 schools qualified)
$22.4 Million Pac-12 teams participating in bowl using projection payouts for each bowl + NYE Bowl for Stanford

$76 Million divided by 12 schools = $6.33 Million

Rough Math. I would check it.

I thought each bowl was split 13 ways and the participant of that bowl would get two while all the rest got one.

Bowls are good no matter what the cost. Great exposure, especially for the recruits that tune in.

PHXCATS wrote:I thought each bowl was split 13 ways and the participant of that bowl would get two while all the rest got one.

Divided equally after expenses, although the bigger bowls seem to have bigger expenses.

azcat49 wrote:Dallas would be fun if you could fly into Dallas by game time. What history at the cotton bowl

I think the Poinsettia Bowl might be wishful thinking and personally I'd take Dallas over New Mexico any day. My son was stationed at Kirkland AFB for a number of years and I made many trips to visit him. Albuquerque is windy and cold and the major industry is crime. Its the home of a 1000 dumpy motels. We can always use the exposure in Texas no matter how slim that exposure is. A few people in the area will turn on the game even if its by accident.

ALB description has me ROTFLMAO. Nicely done Grumpy

tgrumpy2 wrote:

azcat49 wrote:Dallas would be fun if you could fly into Dallas by game time. What history at the cotton bowl

I think the Poinsettia Bowl might be wishful thinking and personally I'd take Dallas over New Mexico any day. My son was stationed at Kirkland AFB for a number of years and I made many trips to visit him. Albuquerque is windy and cold and the major industry is crime. Its the home of a 1000 dumpy motels. We can always use the exposure in Texas no matter how slim that exposure is. A few people in the area will turn on the game even if its by accident.

If I remember correctly, seems like entire TV shows have been based on this "major industry" of ABQ.

I like ABQ, but not when it comes to mid December bowl. We've already done that bowl and there's just no way I can make it to the game. Much easier for me to get to any of the bowls in Tucson, PHX, or San Diego.

wyo-cat wrote:Getting the extra month of practice is why going to a bowl is good. The coaches are all for it.

The bonus a coach gets for making it to a bowl game is another reason they do.

As for recruititng, I'll be anxious to hear what recruits we move the needle with after this year's postseason matchup. And I would imagine we should really come out of the gates on fire next fall due to the extra practices in December.

Look, I don't doubt that bowling has some benefits, but (unless it's a big bowl game) most of those benefits are completely overblown; we aren't getting an incremental meaningful recruit and those extra practices mean very little 8 months later,with a team that has many different personnel. It becomes a question of "are the benefits worth the funds absorbed by playing in the game?" I would suspect those $ could generate a better recruiting return if spent differently.

The ONE thing I can get behind, and the ONLY reason that is completely legit IMHO, is it gives the players (especially the seniors) a very cool experience - extending the careers in the sport they love by another game. Most of those kids bust their ass, and I will never play again after college - and I am happy for them.

Harvey Specter wrote:

Look, I don't doubt that bowling has some benefits, but (unless it's a big bowl game) most of those benefits are completely overblown; we aren't getting an incremental meaningful recruit and those extra practices mean very little 8 months later,with a team that has many different personnel. It becomes a question of "are the benefits worth the funds absorbed by playing in the game?"

Completely agree with you, and additionally, I've never bought into the idea that the supposed "exposure" of playing a neutral sight game in say Houston or Dallas makes any difference in recruiting Texas. Think about it terms of the recruit? If they pay enough attention, they see you're coming to town and suddenly are more interested in playing for you? I think that's highly wishful.

I will watch any bowl we're in, especially since it will likely be Scooby's last game in an Arizona uniform.

Harvey Specter wrote:

wyo-cat wrote:Getting the extra month of practice is why going to a bowl is good. The coaches are all for it.

The bonus a coach gets for making it to a bowl game is another reason they do.

As for recruititng, I'll be anxious to hear what recruits we move the needle with after this year's postseason matchup. And I would imagine we should really come out of the gates on fire next fall due to the extra practices in December.

Look, I don't doubt that bowling has some benefits, but (unless it's a big bowl game) most of those benefits are completely overblown; we aren't getting an incremental meaningful recruit and those extra practices mean very little 8 months later,with a team that has many different personnel. It becomes a question of "are the benefits worth the funds absorbed by playing in the game?" I would suspect those $ could generate a better recruiting return if spent differently.

The ONE thing I can get behind, and the ONLY reason that is completely legit IMHO, is it gives the players (especially the seniors) a very cool experience - extending the careers in the sport they love by another game. Most of those kids bust their ass, and I will never play again after college - and I am happy for them.

Well, ask any coach worth a damn and they will explain the importance of those practices, especially in an era of college football where practice time is so regulated. It is essentially like getting a second spring practice schedule. "Those practices mean very little 8 months later." - With that logic, why practice at all ever except for a few weeks right before the season? Not sure how to better explain this, but practice and training is essential to development, and it all matters. From the a kids time in the weight room in high school to the time on the field learning technique during practice, (even a practice resulting from a shitty bowl invite); it all matters. Most D1 college football players are not going to make a meaningful impact until their JR or SR years, and practice time, whether in December, March, or August, is essential to their development.

I guess I would like to ask you: At what point do you think practice is of value?

Scummy Dick Douglas wrote:

Harvey Specter wrote:

wyo-cat wrote:Getting the extra month of practice is why going to a bowl is good. The coaches are all for it.

The bonus a coach gets for making it to a bowl game is another reason they do.

As for recruititng, I'll be anxious to hear what recruits we move the needle with after this year's postseason matchup. And I would imagine we should really come out of the gates on fire next fall due to the extra practices in December.

Look, I don't doubt that bowling has some benefits, but (unless it's a big bowl game) most of those benefits are completely overblown; we aren't getting an incremental meaningful recruit and those extra practices mean very little 8 months later,with a team that has many different personnel. It becomes a question of "are the benefits worth the funds absorbed by playing in the game?" I would suspect those $ could generate a better recruiting return if spent differently.

The ONE thing I can get behind, and the ONLY reason that is completely legit IMHO, is it gives the players (especially the seniors) a very cool experience - extending the careers in the sport they love by another game. Most of those kids bust their ass, and I will never play again after college - and I am happy for them.

Well, ask any coach worth a damn and they will explain the importance of those practices, especially in an era of college football where practice time is so regulated. It is essentially like getting a second spring practice schedule. "Those practices mean very little 8 months later." - With that logic, why practice at all ever except for a few weeks right before the season? Not sure how to better explain this, but practice and training is essential to development, and it all matters. From the a kids time in the weight room in high school to the time on the field learning technique during practice, (even a practice resulting from a shitty bowl invite); it all matters. Most D1 college football players are not going to make a meaningful impact until their JR or SR years, and practice time, whether in December, March, or August, is essential to their development.

I guess I would like to ask you: At what point do you think practice is of value?

I did not say it was of NO value; I said it was of far less value than most like to imply. Like you.

For a frame of reference, I would say it is FAR, FAR less valuable than spring ball; at that time you are assembling the team that will be competing the following season. Bowl practices involve a number of players that have key roles and won't be back, and there is no competition for roles.

So we can agree to disagree...

But it's not like those that are 2nd or 3rd string, and/or are juniors or below, and would ostensibly move into starters roles the next season don't also get to practice.