College Football: Blame Bowl Selection Committees for Cupcake Scheduling

Stop the presses!  Mississippi State won a bowl game for the first time since the 2000 Independence Bowl, beating Central Florida 10-3.  Heck yeah, an SEC team beating a Conference USA team is cause for celebration, isn't it?

While some say its bowl bid was due to the strength of the SEC, others will point to the most probable reason—cupcake out-of-conference scheduling.  Mediocrity has its rewards.

The 2007 Bulldogs had four non-conference games—Tulane, Gardner-Webb, UAB, and West Virginia.  Props for the Mountaineers game, but an FCS school and two lower-tier FBS schools impress no one—except the Bowl Selection Committees, of course.

The Bulldogs feasted on some huge cupcakes, and the one very good team they did face, WVU, clobbered them 38-13.  They did beat Gardner-Webb 31-15, but Liberty smoked Gardner-Webb 31-0.  Hmmm?

Why pick on Mississippi State?  Why the heck not?  The SEC boasts about all of its 2007 bowl teams, but is it really a sign of strength—or a sign of cupcake scheduling?

The Bulldogs are a team that ended 7-5 in 2007's regular season.  That's pretty impressive, isn't it?  Not really.  Three of those seven wins came against cupcakes.  So what about the other four wins?

Auburn was 8-4 in regular season.  That's a quality win.  Kentucky was 7-5 overall, but 3-5 in conference.  In other words, their out-of-conference games helped boost their record to a winning season and a bowl bid.

Yes, the Wildcats did beat LSU, but their other wins were against Eastern Kentucky, Florida Atlantic, Kent State, Louisville, Arkansas, and Vanderbilt.  Four of their wins came against weaker non-conference teams.  Sorry, Kentucky is not a quality win, even though they too went bowling post-season.

The Bulldogs also beat Alabama and Mississippi.  The Tide was a .500 team and Ole Miss went 3-9.  Neither of these schools qualify as a quality win as well.

So why did Mississippi State go bowling?  Because they won seven games to surpass the minimum six-win qualification, and they benefited from their conference's tie-in to the Liberty Bowl.

Should a team with a losing record in its conference be rewarded with a bowl bid due to cupcake non-conference scheduling?  Hell, no.  But the Bowl Selection Committees are still rewarding them for it.  And schools are taking notice.

Fact—if a team has four non-conference games to schedule, and they schedule cupcakes, they only need to win two conference games to qualify for a bowl bid. This practice is growing in the SEC, with the possible exception of Tennessee, which has stepped up to the plate and scheduled BCS conference teams. But they are the exception.  The result?

To no one's surprise, the SEC had nine teams accept bowl invitations for the 2007 season.  Cupcake scheduling has its rewards.  Ka-ching.

Yes, the SEC went 7-2, winning both BCS bowls.  But how did they do against high quality opponents?  Well, Florida lost to Michigan, but LSU beat Ohio State and Tennessee beat Wisconsin.  That's 2-1 versus high quality opponents.

The rest?  Mississippi State beat Central Florida.  That's a wash.  Alabama beat Colorado.  That's a wash.  Kentucky beat Florida State.  That's a wash. Auburn beat Clemson.  That's a quality win.  Arkansas lost badly to Mizzou.  That's a quality loss.  Georgia smoked Hawai'i.  Umm...no comment, but props to Georgia for proving they ended the season as the favorite going into 2008.

The point?  The SEC faced four quality teams—Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin and Missouri—and went 2-2.  The other five bowl wins were against average competition at best, but they generated huge revenues for the conferences.

And that is precisely why the the Bowl Selection Committees are indirectly encouraging cupcake scheduling for BCS-conference teams.

There are only five teams that, since 1975, have never scheduled a lower division team as an opponent: USC, UCLA, Washington, Notre Dame, and Michigan State.  Ohio State and Michigan were on that list, but after Appalachian State and Youngstown State were added to their schedules, they fell off the list.

Some schools refuse to sacrifice their pride for a win.  Other schools are only after the cheap wins—and yes, they are cheap wins.

Florida State, an ACC team, has Chattanooga and Western Carolina on its 2008 schedule.  Pardon me, but isn't having two FCS schools on your schedule verboten?  Is this what Florida State has to do to get bowl-eligible?  Have Jenn Sterger in the stands and open up a bakery?  Apparently, yes.

Arkansas has Western Illinois, Tulsa, Texas, and Louisiana-Monroe on their schedule.  There are three guaranteed wins in there, and if they beat Kentucky, Ole Miss and Mississippi State, a-bowling-they-will-go. 

Can schools add more advantages to their schedule?  Sure—don't travel outside the comfy confines of your state.

Defending champs LSU have eight home games, and their non-conference games are against Appalachian State, Troy, North Texas, and Tulane.  What a stretch!

LSU has traveled approximately five times (in the last ten years) outside of their state for non-conference games. They claim they can't get anyone to play them, but the fact of the matter is that they don't exactly embrace home-and-home formats with non-conference teams.  Play us only in Death Valley, or we won't play you.

Georgia, of course, has everyone beat. For the first time since playing at Michigan in 1965, the Bulldogs will travel outside their state and play at Tempe, Arizona.  Someone please give those boys a map or some cookie crumbs to leave a trail, or they may not find their way back.  It's a jungle out there.

The BCS started this mess with the cash cow that it has become, and the Bowl Selection Committees put an exclamation on it.  Gone is the integrity of scheduling.

While teams may hide behind excuses, such as "our conference is tough enough, we don't have to play a tough non-conference schedule as well" or "our state forces us to play lower-division, in-state schools," the bottom line is that true football fans know what's going on.

The schools want some guaranteed wins to bump up their overall records and get the golden ticket.

The addition of two new bowls, the Congressional Bowl and the St. Petersburg Bowl, adds more fuel to the fire.  The Congressional Bowl is the destination for the ninth best ACC team, if it qualifies.

The ninth best?  The sad truth is I'll still probably watch it because, well, it's college football.  Pinch me—I've been officially dumbed down by college football bowls.

Beat Chattanooga, Western Carolina, Colorado, N.C. State, Maryland, and Georgia Tech, and you too can go to a bowl.

Beat Virginia, Ohio State, Arizona State, Oregon, and Cal, but lose the rest of your games, and it's time to go fishing.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

The committees need to get their act together and demand—yes, demand—that in order to qualify for a bowl, a team must have six wins against FBS teams.  Make a stand and put these offending teams on a diet.

Bowls used to be a reward for outstanding regular season play. Now they stand for .500 teams beating four cream puffs and winning two weak conference games.

And bragging rights for a conference.

Let the mudslinging and arguments begin.