If you’re of the mindset that the more bowls the better, you might just be in for a treat. If you’re not? Well, you might throw up a little bit in your mouth over the following possibility.
ESPN.com’s Brett McMurphy is reporting that the cities of Tucson and Little Rock are wanting a piece of the postseason pie, tweeting that both are expected to apply for new bowl games for the 2015 season. The proposed Tucson game would pit the Mountain West against Conference USA, while the Little Rock matchup would find the AAC squaring off with the Sun Belt.
According to McMurphy, the bowl in Little Rock will likely be televised by either NBC Sports Network or CBS Sports Network. There is no indication from McMurphy who would televise the other, which will likely be called the Arizona Bowl.
Last year, not counting the College Football Playoff game, there were 38 bowl games. If these two games are added, it would bring the total to a whopping 41 bowls for the 2015 season -- the Cure Bowl in Orlando was announced last April and will debut following the upcoming season. At that number, a full 65 percent of FBS programs would “earn” a bowl bid.
In 2014, there were 84 teams -- counting UAB, which disbanded its football program prior to the start of the postseason -- who were bowl-eligible with at least six wins. That’s enough to fill the spots for 42 bowl games. The year before that, 82 schools reached the requisite six wins; in 2012, there were only 77 bowl-eligible teams, which means that there could very well be years where not enough teams reach six wins and bowls would have to take a look at 5-7 teams to fill all of the slots.
And, if you’re anti-bowl expansion, that’s enough to make your skin crawl. But wait, there’s more...
Pac-12 had exploratory talks about adding bowl in Melbourne, Australia, but now targeting 2016
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) March 30, 2015