Auburn, UCLA, Michigan State Among 23 Teams That Should Not Play in Bowl Games

I love bowl games. Growing up, New Year's Day was the best day of the year, as I could sit back all day long with my dad and watch the best games of the entire college football year, where the best teams of each conference would battle each other before a national audience.

Bowl games at one time represented rewards for great seasons, a chance for good teams to celebrate and enjoy the fruits of their success.

Unfortunately, those days are mostly in the past.

The BCS has ruined New Year's Day by moving some of the BCS bowls to later dates.

Where bowl games on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day were the best of the best, going down the current list of games played from New Year's Eve disgust me, as mediocre teams get to play on dates once reserved for only the best.

Sure, bowl games have always been more about tourism and money than about football or football greatness.

Still, we used to have a chance to least pretend that a team one game above .500 should not be anywhere near a January bowl game.

In one my first articles, I argued that 26 teams should not have gone to bowl games last season.

My argument was very simple: a team should a have a .500 record in conference and seven wins over FBS teams to be eligible for a bowl game.

As such, bowl games should be rewards for teams that had a slightly above average season or better.

Any team that fails to meet these two standards really did not have a decent season and should not be rewarded for being average or worse. Now the NCAA calls any team that wins seven games (with no more than one versus an FCS school) as bowl qualified and any team that wins six games (with no more than one versus an FCS school) as bowl eligible.

To me, that is a joke of a standard and encourages teams to schedule cupcakes to inflate their records.

So which teams should not be in bowl games this year?

Let's look at the teams that should be done for the season, but are not.

ACC (2): Florida State 5 FBS wins, UNC 6

Big East (3): Rutgers 6 (3-4), South Florida 6 (3-4), UConn 6 (3-4)

Big 12 (3): Iowa State 5 (3-5); Oklahoma 6; Texas A&M 6 (3-5)

Big Ten (2): Michigan State 5; Minnesota 5 (3-5)

CUSA (3): Marshall 5, SMU 6, Southern Miss 6

MAC (1): Northern Illinois 6

MWC(2):  Air Force 6, Wyoming 5

Pac-10 (1): UCLA 6 (4-5)

SEC (6): Arkansas 6 (3-5), Auburn 6 (3-5), Georgia 6, Kentucky 6 (3-5), Mississippi 6, South Carolina 6 (3-5)

Sun Belt: None.

WAC: None.

Looking at these results, it appears that the SEC has the most undeserving teams, with as many undeserving teams as the Pac-10, Big 12, and Big Ten combined. Of course, with the stature and hype of the SEC, as well as its school's close proximity to bowl game locations, such is to be expected.

Now, some people argue that any football is better than no football and I can understand that.

Others argue that even average teams should get a chance to play in a bowl game and it means a great deal to an improving program to be rewarded with a bowl game.

Those are nice arguments, but they also cheapen the meaning of the bowl games.  Given that one of the reasons given against a playoff is to protect the sanctity of the bowl system, it appears as though the sanctity is long gone.

With undeserving teams such as Arkansas, Auburn, Florida State, Michigan State, Mississippi, Northern Illinois, and UConn playing on Jan. 1 or later, it cheapens the entire bowl system and makes a mockery of the great reward of playing in a January bowl game.

For me, I would prefer to return to an age with fewer bowl games but more deserving teams rather than have these 23 teams be rewarded for having an average season, or worse.

Even more so, I wish that we could just move on to have a playoff so that we could get some really meaningful games in the college football post-season.