Pac-12 setting new and obvious template for bowl eligibility
College football bowl eligibility has been diminished as an accomplishment, but the Pac-12 may be leading the charge on a new template.
Once upon a time, making a bowl game in college football carried a lot of prestige and great importance. But the addition of mostly meaningless bowl games, in part due to a money grab by the NCAA, has diminished the idea of bowl eligibility. So much so that teams with a 5-7 regular season record have made bowls in order to fill all the available slots.
Three 5-7 teams played in bowls in 2015, followed by two more in 2016, with Academic Progress Ratings as the differentiating factor. Thankfully all the bowl teams last year had at least six wins, and the Pac-12 may be the catalyst for making a wider change.
According to Ralph Russo of the Associated Press, the Pac-12 will require its member teams to have at least six wins in order to go to a bowl. A subcommittee of athletic directors, led by Washington’s Jennifer Cohen, proposed the rule and the conference presidents passed it.
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott offered a statement on the move.
"The Pac-12 is committed to supporting the highest quality of competition at post-season bowl games,” Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement to The Associated Press on Monday. “In requiring a minimum of six regular season wins our goal is to support the significance of the bowl season and provide our fans around the country with the most exciting games featuring our leading Pac-12 teams."
The Pac-12 has not sent a 5-7 team to a bowl, but there is one notable dissenter on the new policy. Washington State head coach Mike Leach called the policy “a solution searching for a problem”, with the extra practices teams get during bowl preparation in mind.
"If we had a 5-7 team lucky enough to make a bowl, they could probably use the practice and the players would probably appreciate the chance to play another game,” Leach said. “Why should we limit opportunities when other conferences aren’t?"
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Leach’s sentiment can certainly be appreciated, especially with his team possibly falling into that 5-7 territory this year without record-setting quarterback Luke Falk. But the Pac-12 should be commended for raising its standards, as the NCAA finds a way to fill 78 bowl slots this coming season.