College Bowl Season

I know I am not the first person to say that the college bowl season is getting ridiculous in terms of length and sponsorship. When an announcer has to say a stupid sponsor name every time they say the name of the bowl it gets more annoying every time, especially when its something like the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, the AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl, or my personal favorite the Military Bowl presented by Northrop Grumman. These names take away from the quality of the bowl games because it makes them seem like they sold out, and some of the names just make it sound pompous. The one bowl that is the exception to this rule is the Chic-fil-a Bowl which has not changed the name of the bowl since they started sponsoring the bowl, which was way before a lot of the bowls. Some of the bowl games I did not even want to watch in fear of how many times I would hear the stupid sponsor name. Some are so ridiculous that they literally make me laugh out loud every time i hear them. I was talking to my dad and he remembers when bowls were just the Military Bowl, the Rose Bowl, and the Gator Bowl. I realize that companies will use any platform to market for their company, but apparently having signs all over the stadium is not enough anymore. The NCAA needs to look into this problem and quickly find a solution, limit the words, or say that signs are enough and do not need to blemish the name of the bowls.

On another but no less annoying point about the bowl season is how long it drags on and on and on and on. You can ask my mom, I love football way more than anyone should, but even I think there are to many bowls to watch. It seems like every team is in a bowl nowadays. Teams that are 6-6 with six division one wins are eligible for bowl games, which to me is just promoting mediocrity. These teams are obviously not the cream of the crop in college football but are still being rewarded for finishing right at 500. They need to cut down the number of bowl games, the count for games this year was 35. So 70 teams made it to bowl game this year, and I bet about 15 of those teams were a mediocre 6-6. I think they should cut the number down to around 16 bowl games every year, which would make the games much more competitive and would give extra motivation for teams to win. More people would tune in to fewer games because they have not become saturated with average football. Now I do know that some of these average teams do pull an upset once and a while, like this year when Washington flattened Nebraska in a rematch of a earlier game this season. These games are few and far in between, but they do appeal to people, who always love an underdog. So some would state the case that teams that finish 6-6 or even 7-5 do deserve a chance to play in a bowl game, but I think that you need at least a 8-4 record to make it to a bowl game, the competition and audience would sky rocket. I mean I am just saying, but I like to think I know what I am talking about.