Bowl Game Proliferation Is Out of Control (and I Have a Chart to Prove It)

July 28, 2011 By 2 Comments

Yesterday ESPN2′s First Take introduced Arizona football coach Mike Stoops by crediting him with leading the Wildcats to three consecutive bowl games and three consecutive winning seasons. I found the introduction odd, because I remember a day when “three consecutive bowl games and three consecutive winning seasons” would have been redundant.

Today, it’s not redundant at all. Several 6–6 teams “earn” bowl berths every year because there are so many bowl games with slots to fill. (Some would say that the lesser bowl games are rewarding mediocrity. But considering how much money schools lose on trips to minor bowls, I’m not sure that these games are a reward at all.)

How different was the bowl-game situation 10, 20, and 30 years ago? I know there were fewer bowl games 15 years ago, but there were also fewer Division I-A (now I-FBS) teams. How has the percentage of teams invited to major college football’s post season changed over the years?

This chart shows the percentage of Division I-A/I-FBS teams that played in bowl games in each season from 1978 until 2010. (1978 was the first season after the NCAA divided Division I into two football subdivisions.) As you can see, in the late 1970s just over 21 percent of Division I-A teams earned bowl invites. Last year more than 63 percent of Division I-FBS teams played in bowl games.

percentage of Division I-A/I-FBS teams to play in bowl games, 1978–2010

I invite you to fit a trendline to that data and estimate how many years will pass before every Division I-FBS team will have travel plans for the holidays.

In 33 seasons the portion of college football teams invited to bowl games has nearly tripled, and this chart gives us no indication that this trend will reverse. There should soon come a time when the NCAA will either have to lower the standard for bowl eligibility (“If the Akron Zips can hold on for their fourth win of the season, they’ll earn a trip to the Heinz Ketchup Bowl”) or place a cap on the number of bowl games.

If you’re interested, here is a chart showing the number of bowl games played at the end of every season since 1978:

number of bowl games per season 1978–2010

And here is a chart showing the number of Division I-A/I-FBS teams for every season since 1978:

number of Division I-A/I-FBS schools by season, 1978–2010

You’ll notice that the number drops in the early 1980s. The Ivy League, Southland Conference, Pacific Coast Athletic Association (now the Big West), and Missouri Valley Conference originally played Division I-A football. The Ivy League, Southland, and PCAA stepped down to I-AA; the MVC’s football programs joined the I-AA Gateway Football Conference, which would later become the Missouri Valley Football Conference. Since that dip, the number of Division I-FBS teams has risen slowly but steadily.

 

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Josh Tinley is the author of Kneeling in the End Zone: Spiritual Lessons From the World of Sports. Follow him at twitter.com/joshtinley or send him an e-mail.

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Filed Under: Away From the Action, CFB
About Josh Tinley

Josh Tinley writes the Away From The Action column at Midwest Sports Fans, covering all aspects of sport aside from what actually happens on the field, court, or track. Josh grew up in Indianapolis and graduated from the University of Evansville and Vanderbilt Divinity School. He is the author of Kneeling in the End Zone: Spiritual Lessons From the World of Sports and the managing editor of LinC, a weekly curriculum for teens that explores the intersection of faith and culture. Josh lives outside Nashville with his wife, Ashlee, and children, Meyer (7), Resha Kate (5), and Malachi (3). He will not allow himself to die before the Evansville Purple Aces make another trip to the NCAA Tournament. Follow him on Twitter @joshtinley or send him an e-mail.

  • Lou Pickney

    The book "Death to the BCS" by Dan Wetzel illustrated how terrible the bowl system is for most involved, save for perhaps the major bowl CEOs. It's sickening to me that college football at its highest level is stuck with such an antiquated system of glorified exhibition games and an arbitrary "national championship" game. Perhaps one day I-A/FBS football will have a playoff system.

  • Craig Springford

    Thanks for using my Akron Zips as an example. We may not have been very good last year in football, but we were tops in futbol. Football will come around for the Zips in short order. Our facilities are by far the best in the MAC. We will return to a bowl game soon, and I assure you that it will be with a winning record of at least 7-8 victories. The NCAA will never increase bowl games to the point where sub 500 schools will qualify. I look for both of your graphs, especially the first one, to start leveling off.